


Remnants

by TheLateNightStoryTeller



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Also Aurora Luft sort of, F/F, Multichapter, X-Company cross over ish?, no not sort of she's definitely in it XD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-12 05:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 44,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11730480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLateNightStoryTeller/pseuds/TheLateNightStoryTeller
Summary: Safe at last, Delphine and Cosima visit Delphine's grandmother in a little French village. But despite the peaceful setting Delphine finds herself haunted by a familiar stranger and a terrible memory that isn't her own.





	1. Chapter 1

It was night, darker than Delphine thought it should be for the city but the men shouting and the pounding terror that stirred in her chest snuffed out any wondering of why that might be.

There was a man in front of her, his eyes wide with fear, and he was bleeding badly. He’d been shot. She’d heard the shot, or at least she remembered hearing it, was still hearing it in the back of her mind. Her stomach clenched, scar prickling in sympathy but it was more than that that drew her to him.

Her hands moved as if they didn’t belong to her, stroking his face and her heart ached with such grief it took her breath away. She blinked hard, trying to control herself.

No, not her. She hadn’t blinked, it was her body. She wasn’t in control of this body though she felt it as if it were her own. She felt the cool night air, the lead-limbed exhaustion both physically and emotionally. She felt a sense of dread unlike any she’d ever known at what was about to happen, though she hadn’t a clue what that was.

“Please don’t let them take me.”

Delphine started, gripped in a horror all her own when for a moment the man’s voice wasn’t his and for a heartbeat the face staring back at her wasn’t a man at all but the face of the woman she loved. But it was so quick she might have been mistaken and when she tried to remember what had just been said it was in his voice not Cosima’s.

“It’s alright,” she found herself saying.

That wasn’t her voice. It came from her mouth, and it had a similar flavour but the accent was wrong and the way she projected her voice was unfamiliar. This body wasn’t hers. This wasn’t her, but it felt like it was and it was terrible. She wanted out of it.

“You can’t let them,” the man begged and Delphine knew instantly what he meant without knowing how she knew.

 _Oh God, please don’t take him. Not that. Not again._ But there was no way out of this. Delphine wanted to scream but the body she was in remained composed despite the shards embedding themselves into their chest.

“It’s alright,” she said again in the voice that was only half hers.

 “Promise,” he pressed desperately.

_Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Help him._

She wasn’t sure who had had the thought. Maybe it was both of them. She didn’t think the body knew she was here.

“I promise I won’t,” they said. Her one hand still stroking his face she felt helplessly as her other curled around the hilt of a knife. Without wanting to, she aimed it as his torso. “It’s alright, I’m right here.”

A jolt of horror ran up Delphine’s spine but she couldn’t stop herself.

“I’m right here, my love.”

_No. Why are you doing this?_

She struggled against their arm, tried to let go of the knife but she had no control. There was a sickening sensation of the blade piercing through flesh and suddenly it was Cosima staring back at her, her expression filled not with betrayal but with a tragic sort of gratitude.

“Delphine?”

 She sounded so weak, so tired, grasping onto her like a lifeline. Seeing her like this broke Delphine completely but she couldn’t cry, not yet.

“You’re not alone,” she promised, holding her head in her hand. This time it was her voice, her body was her own again too late to stop herself. “I’m right here with you,” she promised. She pressed her forehead against hers, desperate. “I love you.”

Tears streaming down her cheeks, she moved back and Cosima’s mouth twitched, almost smiling when she met her gaze. Her eyes shone with relief and love before the light died behind them and she was gone.

“No!” Delphine sobbed.

The city had disappeared. There was only her and Cosima and darkness and pain. From very far away, she felt her double’s grief for the man as sharp as her own for Cosima but it was out of reach now and her own agony was too great for it to keep her attention.

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry, come back. Come back.”

“Delphine!”

Someone was shaking her. Suddenly she was lying down, a heavy blanket over her and a gentle hand on her shoulder. A beam of light from outside the window illuminated the room enough for her to see Cosima’s face, alive and squinting in concern without her glasses.

She stared back at her, breathing hard, the dream still clutching her too tightly for her to speak. It hadn’t been real, she knew that now, but her body was having trouble catching up with reality.

“Hey,” Cosima whispered gently, stroking her cheek. “You’re OK.”

Delphine realized she’d been crying and as she pushed herself up Cosima turned to switch on the light and retrieve her glasses.

“I… it was just a dream,” Delphine managed after a few more shaky breaths.

Cosima offered her a tissue and she took it numbly but didn’t use it, staring blankly down at nothing instead until she felt Cosima’s gentle fingers brush against her jaw.

“A bad one,” Cosima commented sympathetically, her voice was like a gentle caress. “What happened?”

Delphine shook her head. The rest of it was fading but the heavy dread clung stubbornly around her heart.

Cosima tilted her head, waiting with patient concern. Delphine wanted so much to hold her, to surrender herself to the warmth of her arms but she was scared, irrationally so, that if she did she’d be back in the dark city streets and her hand wouldn’t be hers anymore and she’d feel the hilt of the knife once more against her palm.

She wiped her eyes with the tissue, drawing in a long breath. “I’m sorry,” she said weakly. “It’s just… it felt so real.”

Cosima’s gaze shifted down to her stomach and she knew what she was thinking. She probably thought the dream was about the night she’d been shot but though she’d had nightmares about that too none of them had been this real. She still smelled the dirt between the cobblestone, felt the breeze on her skin. She could hear the terror in the man’s voice. In Cosima’s.

Her hands moved up, almost of their own accord, and she took Cosima’s face between them, searching it for any sign of the fear and exhaustion she’d seen in her dream but all she was met with was her girlfriend’s eyes, round with worry over her.

At last, that seemed more tangible than her nightmare and she let herself pull Cosima into a tight hug which she returned firmly.

“It’s alright,” Cosima said and Delphine closed her eyes, shutting out the memory of those words coming from her own mouth in a stranger’s voice.

She buried her face into Cosima’s neck, trying to forget and Cosima stroked her back as they waited for the remnants of the nightmare to pass.

Delphine was almost angry with herself. Here they were, away together at last in her grandmother’s quiet little village where nothing bad ever happened, and there her mind was inventing new things to be afraid of. She didn’t want it. She didn’t want the stranger’s pain, or the man’s terror. They weren’t real. This was real. She was real. Cosima was real.

“We should go back to sleep,” she said at last. She pulled away and managed to give Cosima a tight smile which didn’t ease her concern at all. “I’m OK,” she promised as the other woman’s eyes searched her face.

“OK,” Cosima conceded. She touched her cheek briefly before turning to remove her glasses and switch off the lamp.

Then she lay back down in the light from the little window, wiggling closer to Delphine, who lay back against the pillow, and placed a tentative arm around her stomach. When Delphine brought up her own hand to hold Cosima’s arm, tilting her head towards her, Cosima squirmed closer, gently nudging Delphine’s nose before settling her head onto the pillow close by. Cosima’s thumb stroked her stomach, just above her scar, and at last she felt safe.

“I love you,” Delphine whispered.

“I love you too,” Cosima answered softly.

Delphine let herself relax, focusing on the weight of Cosima’s arm and the steady sound of her breathing, trying to match her own breaths to hers. She’d fought so long and hard to keep Cosima safe, she wondered if the other woman knew all the ways in which she kept Delphine safe too. She wondered if there was a way to tell Cosima that in her arms she came completely to life and her spirit was invincible to anything that might harm it.

 After several minutes, when Cosima had fallen back asleep and Delphine lay counting their breaths and staring at the ceiling from the safest place she knew, the ache in her heart let go of her and the dream faded completely. A long ago memory. A moment from another life.


	2. Chapter 2

Delphine woke to yellow sunlight through the open window and the ringing of laughter from downstairs. Cosima had woken before her, uncommon but not unusual, and clearly she’d made herself at home with her grandmother. She hazily remembered being asked if she were awake, mumbling a no and hearing Cosima's chuckle before brushing a hand down her shoulder. Uncharacteristically drowsy despite the light spilling in from outside, Delphine had buried herself under the blanket to block it out when Cosima had gotten up, teasing lightly that she was being grumpy.

Or maybe that had been a dream, but she didn't think so. She'd had dreams all night and her only memory of those was wanting them to end while the memory of Cosima was as tangible and sweet as her cheerful voice drifting up from below. 

Smiling, Delphine sat up and glanced around the tiny room she’d shared with her brother and her younger cousins every summer they’d visited their grandmother in St. Lynette. A doll grinned at her from the dresser but she couldn’t remember who it had belonged to. The floor was a light coloured wood that creaked when she stepped onto it and she had to duck not to hit her head on the triangular ceiling that slanted over the bed towards the wall. Opposite that was a metal radiator, already coated with its summer covering of dust.

The room seemed miniaturized from how she remembered, too small for four children, but maybe she’d just grown. Regardless, it felt like home.

The laughter continued as she made her way barefoot down the narrow staircase. She heard her grandmother explaining something in French and Cosima repeating a few of the words back to her in a terrible accent. She wondered with some amusement how far they’d gotten communicating when Cosima barely knew French and her grandmother only knew rudimentary English.

“chèvre?” Cosima was asking when Delphine reached the kitchen. “A horse?”

They both had a cup of coffee and some fruit and bread. Between them was the vase of flowers she and Cosima had brought for her grandmother and a paper covered in sketches and words that Delphine guessed they’d been using an aid to communication. Her grandmother was shaking her head at Cosima.

“Non, pas un cheval,” she chuckled at her.

“She means a goat,” Delphine translated, coming in from the entrance behind Cosima.

Her grandmother smiled and Cosima turned, grinning at her in that giddy welcoming way she had that made people feel like they’d just lit up the room for her. Charmed, Delphine gave Cosima a quick kiss before sitting down next to her. Remembering where they were, she cast her grandmother a nervous glance but she was still smiling at them.

“We were talking about you,” Cosima told her mischievously.

Delphine looked between them, raising an eyebrow. _Me and a goat?_ However, when she caught her grandmother’s expression she understood what they were talking about.

She hid her face in her hands. “Grand-maman,” she groaned.

But her grandmother simply continued the story, both she and Cosima looking to Delphine expectantly for a translation.

“No,” she told both of them, giggling despite herself.

“C’mon grumpy-pants,” Cosima pushed playfully. “My parents can tell you whatever they want.”

Delphine shrugged. “Learn French.”

Cosima made a face at her and her grandmother laughed as Delphine made a face right back and got up to get herself some food.

“C’est une bonne idée,” her grandmother said. “J’espere que tes enfants seront bilingue.”

Delphine felt her cheeks flush but Cosima was laughing. They hadn’t really discussed having children yet, never mind what languages they would speak but she knew no great grandchild of Annie Cormier was going to get away with being exclusively Anglophone. No matter where they lived.

“Yeah, of course. The whole family,” Cosima promised, amused but sincere, and Delphine looked over her shoulder to see her grandmother nodding approvingly.

She met Cosima’s eyes and they smiled at each other. It was a decision they could make now, one of many. Where to live, to have children or not, what careers to pursue, whether or not to get married and when to meet each other’s families. They were _free_ and together, something she was still having trouble completely grasping but which left her bubbling each time she remembered it.

As Delphine washed her hands, her grandmother took her suggestion seriously and began teaching Cosima a few simply phrases. Cosima was, as always, an eager student. She repeated the words, fumbling but sweetly enchanted by them, and Delphine could tell that her grandmother was already fond of her by her enthusiastic encouragement. A warmth rose in Delphine’s chest to hear these two people who she loved so much getting along.

However, dark clouds seemed intent on blotting out her little patch of sunshine and what she saw when she looked back down at the cold water sliding over her hands made her heart leap like a stone into her throat.

 Blood, red like rust, stained her palms and fingers and, though the water made it run in streams and smudge across her hands, it wasn’t washing off.

Gasping, she yanked them back, turning them over in a search for the source of the blood. But outside the water they were clean and the tap ran pure and clear into the metal sink.

It hadn’t been her eyes playing tricks on her though. She’d felt it, thick and crusty, and she’d breathed in the sickening heavy iron smell. Hands shaking, she looked over them for a cut that might have been the source but deep down she knew the blood hadn’t been her own.

“Delphine?” Cosima called, concerned.

She looked over her shoulder to see the two of them had stopped the lesson to stare at her.

“It’s… very cold,” she told them, repeating herself in French even though she knew her grandmother understood the simple phrase.

Her grandmother seemed to accept this, chuckling something under her breath about raising a city girl, but Cosima wasn’t fooled. Maybe she remembered the nightmare from last night. Delphine had almost forgotten it until a moment ago but now the horror of it all came crashing back and she busied herself drying her hands to hide her expression.

 _What is wrong with me?_ Nightmares were no stranger to her but this? Was she losing it after all she’d seen? The man’s face flashed across her minds eye and she shut her eyes tight, wishing she could banish him from her head.

“I’ll get you some coffee,” Cosima said. Her chair skidded across the floor as she stood up “Do you want any more, Annie?” she offered, gesturing to the older woman’s cup. “Uh, voulez vous…. uh, café?”

“Non, merci,” Annie said warmly.

Cosima gently brushed Delphine’s shoulder with the back of her hand on the way to the coffee pot, shooting her a questioning look. Delphine forced a smile but she could tell it wasn’t convincing.

“Not now,” Delphine mouthed. She wasn’t ready to explain what was wrong just yet. She barely understood it herself.

With a small nod, Cosima seemed to accept that answer and went back to retrieving a mug for Delphine’s coffee as Delphine took out some bread and fruit for her breakfast. She wasn’t all that hungry anymore, but she didn’t want her grandmother knowing how upset she was when she didn’t know how to explain why.

They sat down together and she did her best to pick at her food but it was difficult to put herself back into the mindset she’d been in a few minutes ago and she could already tell that she’d dampened her girlfriend’s mood by the looks she kept shooting her.

Coming to a decision, she forced a smile. “Did you want to hear the story about the goat?”

“Tell her,” Annie mused in her thick accent.

Cosima leaned back in her chair, eyes sparkling. “Yeah, let’s hear it.”

“I was very young,” Delphine began defensively. “Five, I believe…”

“Six ans,” Annie told them.

“Yes, and Rémi was eleven,” she remembered. “He told me grand-maman wanted me to milk the goats.”

“You had goats?” Cosima asked.

Annie nodded. “We had a farm.” She winked at Cosima. “Avec des poulets et des chèvres.”

“Chickens _and_ goats,” Cosima guessed, grinning when that got her another nod of approval.

“And a very big rooster,” Delphine added.

“He scared her,” Annie informed Cosima.

“I grew up in the city,” Delphine shrugged. “The biggest birds we had were crows.”

“So what happened with the goat?” Cosima pressed. “Did you manage to milk her?”

“It wasn’t a her,” Delphine told her.

Cosima snorted. “Seriously?”

“I didn’t know what to do,” she went on. “But I didn’t want my brother to know I couldn’t do it so I went inside and took the milk out of the fridge and poured it into the bucket instead.”

“Rémi was very surprised,” Annie told her.

“He had no idea how I did it,” Delphine added with a smirk. “I got in so much trouble though, for wasting all the milk.”

Cosima’s whole body shook from her laughter. “Did he ever find out?” she asked.

“Not until years later,” Delphine told her. “And I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong until much later.”

“You still managed a really good con,” Cosima giggled. She held up her hand and Delphine shook her head, smiling, but still gave her a half-hearted high-five.

They all laughed again and Delphine managed to push the dying man and the blood to the back of her mind. It was stress, she told herself, that’s all this was. A few days out here away from everything and it would go away.

She dug into her breakfast with renewed interest, eager to enjoy the rest of the day.

////

“I like her,” Annie said as Delphine put away the dishes, speaking in French now that it was only the two of them.

Cosima was upstairs, still getting ready to go out to the market.

Delphine turned to her, beaming. “I thought you would. She’s…” She blushed, shaking her head as she looked down to stare at the plate she was drying. “I didn’t expect this,” she said under her breath.

“You didn’t expect to bring home an American?” her grandmother teased.

“To be in love,” Delphine said quietly. She glanced up to see Annie was smiling softly.

“Mon ange,” she said fondly. “I always knew you had a beautiful heart. Even as a little girl, it was big and strong. Cosima is lucky that you choose to share it with her.”

She held out her hands and Delphine put down the plate to let her take both of hers into her own. She’d known these hands all her life, slender fingers and a firm grip. They’d held her since she was small enough for the older woman to carry her in one arm. There was no one else in Delphine’s family as close to her, no one but Cosima who knew her so well. So of course her grandmother would say what she said next.

“She makes you happy,” she told her warmly. “That is my favourite thing about her, how she lights up your face.” She leaned forward, keeping her voice low. “Last time we spoke, you said wanted to marry her.”

“If that’s what she wants,” Delphine answered. “Then yes, someday.”

“We have a ring in our family,” she reminded her. Delphine nodded slowly. She’d seen it once but she still remembered how beautiful it was. “When the time comes, you can have it for her. If that is what you want.”

Delphine blinked at her, taken aback. “But… Rémi?”

 Her family had never been the patriarchal type but her brother was the eldest. He had a girlfriend he’d been with for several years, surely he’d want it before she did. Everyone in the family knew that the two of them would be married one day.

“Your brother wants new things,” her grandmother told her. “And so does Colette. I want to give this to you because I know you will understand why it is important. And I think that Cosima will too. I can tell that she sees the beauty in things like that.” She brought up a hand to Delphine’s cheek. “Like she sees what I see in you.”

Blinking back tears, Delphine enveloped her in a tight hug. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Annie gave her a squeeze, kissing her cheek before pulling away.

“Now go get dressed,” she told her. “I want to have everything I need for supper tonight.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK so there will be little X-Company references in this (obviously) and Delphine's grandmother is named after a minor character (do you know which one?) 
> 
> Delphine's brother is named for the rat in Ratatouille, because he is so cute and I love him. The rat. I've never met her brother.
> 
> I am not in any way bilingual so sorry if there are any mistakes there.


	3. Chapter 3

The sunlight continued, bright and promising, when they left the house. The sky was deep blue with only a few puffs of cloud lazily making their way across it. Birds chirped their morning songs from the forest nearby and bumblebees and butterflies hopped between the flowers of Annie’s garden.

Delphine’s grandmother’s house was small but it was beautiful. Old grey stone walls rose up two stories to an old black tiled roof with a chimney. In the triangle of the roof, the little window that lit the guest room stuck out like a nose.

The garden grew both flowers and vegetables, extending almost to the road. Delphine found a cherry tomato plant and plucked the first bright red fruit from the vine, which she placed in Cosima’s hand.

“These are my favourite,” she told her.

Cosima considered the fruit, grinning down at it. Then she held it out, butting it gently against Delphine’s lips. Amused, Delphine let Cosima feed her the first tomato.

“I’m testing it on you first,” Cosima teased and Delphine chuckled at her as the sour flavour burst onto her tongue.

Hand in hand, they walked down the old dirt road towards market. The row of houses they passed were on the fringes of the village, surrounded by thick woods, which went on for several kilometers before the nearest town of Bourbon, on one side and fields of grain on the other. A few chickens clucked at them from the side of the road but otherwise it was peacefully quiet.

“So, are you going to tell me what that was about in the kitchen?” Cosima asked, swaying their hands between them.

Surely she hadn’t understood what she and her grandmother were talking about? Delphine didn’t think she was ready to bring up the ring yet. She didn’t want to lie either though, there was no need for that now.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“With the water,” Cosima pressed and Delphine was relieved for only a split second.

“I… don’t know,” she answered honestly. That wasn’t the entire story though. She rubbed her thumb over the back of Cosima’s hand, coming to a decision. “I saw blood,” she admitted calmly. “On my hands. All over them. But it wasn’t real.”

Cosima frowned, confused. “What do you mean you saw it? You imagined it?”

“No,” Delphine shook her head. “I saw it. I smelled it. And then it was gone.”

“Like… you mean you were hallucinating?” Cosima was terrible at hiding her emotions and the concern was written across her face in flashing neon lights.

“Yes. It seems like an hallucination,” she agreed.

Cosima took her arm, stopping them both in their tracks, and her round eyes searched Delphine’s. “Delphine, if something’s wrong…”

“It’s the stress,” she told her quickly. “That’s all it is. We’re finally safe now, maybe it’s my body’s way of decompressing.”

“Maybe…” Cosima said slowly. “Does it have anything to do with the nightmare you had last night?”

An image flashed before her mind’s eye, her hands bloody and shaking above the dark cobblestone road. Had that been part of her dream? She couldn’t remember.

“It could be,” she answered.

Cosima tilted her head, trying to catch her gaze. “Are you gonna tell me about that?” she asked gently when she did.

Was she? Maybe it would be less confusing if they could examine it together.

She gave Cosima a small nod and gestured for them to continue their walk. The road wound for a good twenty minutes through the row of houses before reaching the market, and along the way she told Cosima all that she could remember about her dream.

“I would _never_ hurt you,” she added firmly, gripping Cosima’s hand tighter when she came to the end.

Cosima squeezed back. “I know. It was just a dream.”

But it had felt like so much more than that.

“I didn’t want hurt him either,” she went on. “And I don’t think she wanted to hurt him but… she…” Delphine frowned, trying to remember. “She had to,” she said at last.

“She, as in the body you were in?” Cosima clarified. Delphine nodded and she went on. “OK. OK so we have you seeing what someone else is doing. And that’s murdering a man who, uh… is sometimes me? But neither of you actually _want_ to do it?”

Delphine lifted her shoulders, at a loss. “I know it sounds confusing. But it made sense when it was happening.”

“But you weren’t in control?” she asked.

“No,” Delphine told her. “Not until I… until _she_ stabbed him. And he became you.”

“And this wasn’t a movie you saw or something you read somewhere?”

“It wasn’t a movie,” Delphine told her with conviction. “It was more like a memory. Maybe… you know I have…” she paused, lowering her voice. “I _have_ killed a man.”

Cosima shook her head. “That was self defense.”

“I still did it,” she said flatly.

They’d stopped again and she searched Cosima’s face, hating this but needing to make sure she understood exactly what she’d done. As much as she wanted the other woman’s love she wanted it to be real. She wasn’t going to hide parts of herself or lie to her ever again. That was her freedom, to tell the truth.

“I know,” Cosima said quietly. She placed a hand on Delphine’s cheek, her fingers gently brushing her skin and Delphine leaned into it gratefully. “We don’t have to live like that anymore though.” The corners of her mouth rose in a soft smile. “And whatever this is, you have me OK? We’ll figure it out.”

She meant it too, Delphine could feel it in the way she was looking at her, in her hand cupping her cheek. Warmth spread through her chest and she turned her head, planting a kiss on Cosima’s palm.

“OK,” she said softly.

“OK,” Cosima agreed watching her with rapt attention. “Just tell me if it happens again.”

“I will,” Delphine promised.

This was good, the openness. It was frightening at first to give the problem a voice and make it real but now she wasn’t alone in it and the sense of relief was as welcoming as it was unfamiliar.

The sun continued to shine and the morning was good.

///

“So it’s just a regular phone?” Delphine asked. “There isn’t any poison or explosives…”

Cosima laughed at her. “You’re thinking too hard about this.”

“Maybe it just seems easy because you know the answer,” Delphine objected playfully.

“Hmm.” Cosima smiled, taking another large bite out of her ice cream.

They’d gotten what they’d needed at the market, four bags full of fruit, vegetables, bread and cheese which they were now carrying home. After they’d finished shopping Delphine had taken Cosima to her favourite ice cream store. It was the only one in town and she’d explained to Cosima that it was only open in the summer but that the rich ice cream and handmade cones had always been one of her favourite things about her visits.

Having tried it now, Cosima could see why.

 As they’d walked they’d began playing a question game. It was from a game she had back home called Black Stories. One player chose a card with a scenario and the other asked questions to guess what was going on. Cosima had memorized the puzzles on many of the cards, including the one she was using now.

It was a simple statement. A man’s phone rings and he dies. Delphine’s job was to figure out why.

“Was it something that was said to him from the other end?” she asked.

Cosima shook her head again giggling at the way she scrunched her nose in concentration.

“What does a phone do?” she offered after a moment.

“It rings?” Delphine guessed. “Oh!” She shook her ice cream cone, a thought surfacing. “Oh. Hold on. Um... Oh! He didn’t want anyone to hear him!” she realized.

“You’re so close,” Cosima encouraged. “Why not?”                                                                                                   

“Because…” she bit her lip and Cosima couldn’t help a rush of affection at how cute she looked deep in thought. “Because he was a spy!”

Cosima grinned at her. “Yes.”

“But when the phone rang his enemies heard him and…” She trailed off, her face falling.

She’d stopped walking, her hand drooping so that the ice cream dripped onto the dirt. She stared down at her feet, expressionless and it was like she’d suddenly powered down.

“Delphine?” Cosima circled in front of her, confused. She shifted her ice cream to her other hand, freeing the one so she could lift Delphine’s chin but the other woman’s eyes were blank and unfocused. “Delphine, wake up.”

Nothing happened. Cosima's stomach twisted and, unnerved, she gave her a rough shake.

At last Delphine started, blinking as if she’d just awoken from a trance. “What?” she mumbled dazedly. She’d dropped her ice cream and it was now melting into the ground. She stared at it, blinking in confusion. “What happened?”

“You completely spaced out,” Cosima exclaimed, unable to keep the edge out of her voice. “Like some invasion of the body snatchers shit.”

“I’m sorry,” Delphine said distractedly. She hadn't seem to notice Cosima's alarm. “I just…” She shook her head. “I don’t know. I didn’t sleep very well,” she added when she caught Cosima’s expression.

Her heart was still thudding in her chest and Cosima stared back at her, uncertain. “You scared the shit out of me,” she muttered. "I thought you were gonna pass out." 

“Hey, I’m OK,” Delphine insisted but Cosima shook her head.

“You’re not OK,” she objected. “You’re having nightmares, you’re seeing stuff that isn’t there and now you’re blacking out…” She shook her head unhappily.

 _‘Is this because of what you did for me?’ she wondered._ She’d seen the physical scars Delphine’s loyalty had left on her but what if it went deeper than that?

“I just need to rest,” Delphine told her. She smiled, gesturing to the quiet houses around them. “And this is the best place for us both to do that.”

Cosima wasn’t entirely convinced but she could tell that Delphine was so she decided to let it go and keep an eye on her for now. Maybe the rest _would_ help her. Maybe right now the best thing she could do for her was protect from having to worry and make sure she stayed happy and stress free.

She reached up to cup Delphine’s cheek, forcing a smile though her heartbeat refused to slow. “It is peaceful here,” she conceded. She pulled her hand away, shifting her ice cream back into it and offering it to her. “Do you want to share the rest?”

Delphine accepted the cone and took a large bite of ice cream, smiling at Cosima. She seemed relieved to change the subject.

They left Delphine’s cone and continued on back to the house, passing the ice cream between them as the went.

“He was a spy and they were going catch him,” Delphine told her after a few minutes of silent walking. “That’s why she killed him. The woman in my dream,” she clarified when Cosima raised her eyebrows questioningly. “The man didn’t want them to torture him again, so she killed him.”

That only deepened Cosima’s confusion but Delphine was already moving on to another topic, explaining what they were going to make for supper that night with a renewed enthusiasm, and Cosima wasn’t even entirely sure she remembered what she’d just said.

_‘Give her a few days,’ she told herself. ‘Maybe she’ll get better.’_

But this whole thing was only getting weirder and weirder as time went on and what scared Cosima the most was that it didn’t make any sense to her at all.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Black Stories is a real game (I think it's originally German?) where you try to solve gruesome scenarios like why a man died answering his phone. It's actually a pretty fun two player game.


	4. Chapter 4

Annie and Delphine made supper that night. Cosima tried to help but Annie quickly shooed her out of the kitchen, half laughing, half shaking her head at her and saying something in French that Cosima didn’t understand but which made Delphine snort.

“What?” she asked, turning to Delphine for help.

“She says she hasn’t trained you to work in her kitchen,” Delphine explained, laughing along with her grandmother. She shrugged good-humouredly. “It took me a long time to be allowed to cook here too.”

“Well what am I supposed to do?“ Cosima asked but Annie was already calling Delphine back to chopping up vegetables.

“Stay,” Delphine suggested over her shoulder. “Keep us company.”

Cosima took a seat at the kitchen table, amused that she could now put _kicked out of a kitchen by a French cook_ on her list of things that she’d done. She played with the napkin holder and watched Delphine from behind as she began peeling a potato, saving a playful comment about the view for later when they were alone.

All evening, Cosima had been watching her closely. She was still worried about her, a fear that had hooked itself into her gut and stung every so often to remind her it was there. Delphine seemed fine now though, in fact she was contagiously cheerful cooking alongside her grandmother.   

“So, uh, have you always lived in St. Lynette, Annie?” Cosima asked, trying to take her mind off the subject.

“Non,” Annie answered, setting a pot of water to boil. “Je suis née dans le Nord de la France.”

“In the North of France,” Cosima guessed and Annie waved a wooden spoon at her approvingly.

“I was… um… adopted,” Annie told her, taking the potatoes from Delphine. “When I was nine years old, I came to St. Lynette.”

“Both of my great grandparents were killed in the war,” Delphine explained solemnly.

“I’m sorry,” Cosima told Annie and the older woman gave her a small nod before speaking again in French and looking to Delphine for a translation.

“They lived in Ville-Marie,” Delphine said. She’d stopped what she was doing, listening to her grandmother tell her story. She nodded along as if she’d heard it before, but there was a deep respect in her eyes. “My great grandfather was part of the resistance,” she translated. “And she thinks my great grandmother was as well. She had a friend, a woman, who would disappear into the woods. She thinks they were spying on the Germans. Her parents were very brave. Heroes.”

Cosima nodded, unable to imagine how frightening that must have been for Annie and thinking that her parents would be proud to see what their daughter and their great granddaughter had become.

“They must have been,” she agreed.

Soon the meal was ready and Annie let Cosima set the table. The food was amazing and Cosima made sure to compliment the cook. Delphine’s grandmother really seemed to like her even if she didn’t approve of her kitchen skills and she was glad for that. It felt good to be able to fit into Delphine’s life here the way she knew Delphine fit into their life back home. Pieces were clicking into place between them, made all the tighter by their history of dedication to each other and even as this sense of commitment made her nervous, it also excited her.

Sometime that evening Cosima found her eyes caught on Delphine, her features softly animated as she explained something to Annie, and it hit her like a wave just how much she loved this woman. She wanted her, all of her, every single day of her life. She didn’t just want commitment to her, she _was_ committed to her already in a way that was both beyond her control and completely her choice.

This brave, wonderful woman was her soulmate and she thought that she was so luck to finally be allowed to keep her. And she wasn’t going to let anything pull them apart again.

////

That night Delphine and Cosima sat on the banks of a narrow river watching the moonlight on the water. Out here it was dark enough that the black sky was peppered with stars and quiet enough to hear the frogs and the crickets singing.

“We would go swimming here when I was a girl,” Delphine said quietly. Cosima lay with her head on her lap, watching the water sideways, but she turned to smile up at her as she spoke and Delphine smiled back, running her finger tips down her face and past her ear. “It wasn’t as nice as the beaches back home,” she went on. “But no one ever came here and it felt like ours.”

“Can we still swim in it?” Cosima asked.

Delphine chuckled. “Tomorrow, if you’d like, we can come back.”

“What about right now?” Cosima asked with a smirk. She sat up, taking Delphine’s hand.

“Seriously?” Delphine laughed, allowing herself to be pulled up.

But Cosima was already taking off her shirt, leaving it crumpled on the sandy shore, then her shoes, her socks.

“You aren’t joking,” Delphine realized, amused.

“C’mon,” Cosima pressed. “It’ll be fun. You like seeing me naked, don't you?” she teased, making Delphine chuckle. 

"There are benefits to being your girlfriend," she teased. 

Eyes sparkling, Cosima tugged at the bottom of Delphine’s shirt, meeting her eyes to ask if she could and grinning when Delphine laughed and raised her arms for her to pull it over her head.

“Someone might come along,” she warned half-heartedly, leaning in close to whisper, but her smile didn’t falter.

“And see what? It’s pitch black,” Cosima pointed out, unconcerned. “Everyone here goes to bed at like, ten o’clock anyway.”

She wasn’t entirely wrong. The water was fresh and inviting and it was still hot from the day. Besides that, the idea of skinny dipping with Cosima sent a thrill through her.

Soon the only thing they had left on between the two of them was Cosima’s glasses.

“You’re going to lose these,” Delphine told her, gently pulling them off.

“I can’t see,” Cosima giggled as Delphine tucked them into their clothes.

When she turned back to her, Cosima was giggling at her under the moonlight. She was so beautiful, animated and shining with giddy excitement like a firefly. Giggling along, Delphine pulled her against her into a deep kiss. It was cooler without her clothes but Cosima was warm, and her hands trailed heat down Delphine’s back. Everywhere their bare skin met made her stomach twist delightfully. After a blissful minute, Delphine pulled away from the kiss and butted her forehead against Cosima’s.

“You can feel that though,” she whispered.

“Mhmm,” Cosima answered happily, her eyes still closed. She lifted her head to give Delphine another kiss, her fingers dancing along her ribs. “Who needs glasses?”

Delphine laughed. “Did you still want to swim?”

“Are you trying to distract me?” she teased.

Delphine kissed her under her ear, smiling at Cosima’s deep breath. “Is it working?” she mused.

Cosima answered by wiggling out of her arms. Stepping backwards towards the river, she pulled Delphine along with her by both hands with a grin that stretched from ear to ear. It wasn’t far but they walked slowly, Delphine keeping an eye out for anything that might trip them in the dark.

Their feet hit the water and Delphine gasped. “Oh, no. It’s too cold,” she protested.

“Chicken,” Cosima teased, moving away from her. She waded out until the water passed her belly button, shivering a little but still beaming. “You coming?”

Delphine walked out until she was up to her knees, slowly getting used to the water but Cosima took a step back for every step she took forward. When the water reached her chest, Cosima took a deep breath and plunged under. For a few seconds there was only the ripples she’d left behind. Then she surfaced, treading water now with her teeth chattering.

“That’s really cold,” she gasped.

“Pauvre petit chiot,” Delphine clucked, amused. She held out her arms playfully. “Come here, I’ll keep you warm.”

But Cosima shook her head, giggling, and swam away from her. “Come get me.”

Laughing, Delphine waded further in, braver now that she was chasing after Cosima. But Cosima was a faster swimmer than Delphine could walk through the river and she seemed to enjoy evading her. She’d wait just out of her reach and then dive away when Delphine got too close. It was both endearing and frustrationg.

 In just above her belly button, Delphine’s fingers nearly curled around Cosima’s arm but the other woman splashed her and propelled herself away, laughing at her and floating on her back.

“Brat,” Delphine called after her and Cosima’s giggles shook her until she had to touch her feet to the bottom to keep her head up.

Seeing her chance, Delphine braced herself and dove in after her through a shock of cold water. When she reached Cosima the other woman rewarded her efforts by holding out her arms. They met in chest deep water and Cosima pulled her close until she was enveloped in warmth.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Cosima said, standing on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around Delphine’s neck. Her lips were still trembling from the cold.

“It’s freezing,” Delphine complained, but she was smiling.

Cosima nuzzled her nose. “The things you do for me,” she joked.

She was still laughing when Delphine kissed her and she continued to giggle and shiver against her lips until she was moving so much she had to pull away.

‘You’re ridiculous,” Delphine told her fondly. Her teeth were chattering too and she was pretty sure her lips were turning blue but the heat spreading from her stomach was starting to warm her up. Cosima laughed in delight at the accusation, treading her fingers through Delphine’s hair and Delphine’s voice softened with affection. “And I’d do anything for you.”

A hush fell between them a heartbeat before Cosima responded to her with a fierce kiss. She wrapped herself around her and Delphine’s feet dug into the sand at the added weight as she lifted her up. They were both light in the water though and she held on tightly, kissing her and letting Cosima move her hands across her body until neither of them were cold anymore.

Eventually they found themselves back on the shore, on top of their clothes without thinking about how they were going to get them all wet. Cosima cradled the back of her head, gently lowering her to the ground and Delphine stared up at her, madly in love and impatient for what was going to happen next.

She felt around for Cosima’s glasses and moved them safely out of the way before Cosima began planting kisses down her neck and onto her chest and she became completely distracted by what she was doing.

Each kiss was hungry and soft with adoration and they made warmth blossom under her skin until the water and the sand and the sky were gone and her world was filled to each end with what Cosima was doing. She let go of everything else and allowed herself to surrender completely to the other woman.

_‘You have me,’ she thought in drunk-like inhibition. ‘You have all of me.’_

_/-/-/_

They were walking back, shivering between fits of giggles about the inappropriate places they had mosquito bites, when Delphine saw him.

He stood under a streetlight, dressed in clothes that would have blended in in a historical re-enactment, his hand clutching at his shirt where bright blood was starting to stain it. It was the man from her dream but he was here, staring at her with pleading eyes.

She stopped dead in her tracks, her limbs filling with ice, and shut her eyes tight. He _couldn’t_ be real. Surely when she opened her eyes again he would be gone, but he wasn’t. He stood in the white light of the lamp as solid as she and Cosima were.

“Delphine?” Cosima’s voice sounded far away.

_Help him._

Her hand slipped out of Cosima’s and she drifted forward as if in a trance. Each time the man took a step back, she took a step forward.

Cosima was calling to her, asking her something, and she wanted to answer but her body wasn’t hers anymore. It belonged to someone else and that someone else knew this man but not Cosima and while Delphine was drawn to her, they were drawn to him beyond her control.

Shots fired off in the distance, distorted as if the sound of them had been wrapped in cotton, and when the man broke out into a run she bolted after him.

A woman called out to her, a name she didn’t recognize but which a part of her knew to be her own. That part of her was fading quickly though, like dust in the wind and she ignored the sting in her heart that she’d forgotten who the woman was too.

She chased after René, not understanding why he was running from her and disoriented by the strange white lights and the unfamiliar streets. Where was everyone? Where were the soldiers on the night watch?  

After about a minute, she realized that she’d lost track of him and that she didn’t know where she was. She fought the urge to call out his name, not wanting to draw attention to herself. Just because the streets looked empty didn’t mean that they were.

_René is dead._

He was gone. She remembered that now with a sickening jolt. What had she just seen? Where was she? Her head pounded and she pressed her palms to her temples, vision swimming as she fell to her knees.

_What’s happening to me?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so there are a lot of nods and tie ins to X-Company in this chapter haha. Hopefully if you haven't seen it most of this will become clearer next chapter.
> 
> I don't know if the name René is supposed to have an accent? If you look it up on the official website for the show I don't think it does (it just has Rene Villiers) but if you just look up the name you get René soooooooo. I have no idea I just picked one.


	5. Chapter 5

“Delphine!”

It was a woman, surprising her with her American accent. She tried to open her eyes but a wave of nausea passed over her and she bent over, cold with fear and clutching her stomach. Someone must have drugged her because she couldn’t remember anything. Not what she’d been doing or why she was there. She just hoped that whatever happened next it would be over quickly.

A hand gripped her shoulder and she started, clenching her jaw to keep from yelping.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” The woman’s voice was gentle and hands took her face between them, pushing back a sweaty strand of hair from her face. “Talk to me,” she urged.

Thrown by her kindness, Aurora looked up to see that the other woman’s eyes were bright with concern and she felt a flicker of hope. She didn’t look like anyone she’d ever met, with her strange clothes and hair and her oversized glasses. She didn’t know her but nothing about her immediate behaviour indicated that she wanted to hurt her. In fact, she seemed to want to help.

Aurora didn’t know what to do. Mostly, she realized with twisted amusement, because she didn’t know who she was supposed to _be._ Did this woman expect her to speak English? French? German? Something else entirely? Where did she think she was from? How did she think she knew her?

_Don’t say anything._

“Can you stand?” The woman’s hands moved down her arms as she looked her over. “Oh god… are you hurt?”

Could she stand? Her head still ached but most of the dizziness had faded. Might as well give it a try. She began to push herself up and the other woman rushed to help, lending her both arms for support. Spots danced across her eyes as she rose and she clung to her for support, but after a moment her vision cleared and she was able to stand on her own.

Clutching the woman’s arm, they took a few tentative steps together and she realized she was able to walk.

“Let’s get you home,” the woman said softly. “I shouldn’t have made you go in the water,” she added under her breath and Aurora realized that her hair had been damp not sweaty. “I’m sorry, I knew you weren’t feeling well I just didn’t think…” she trailed off, distraught.

She noticed that her clothes were damp too and the other woman’s hair was still dripping. Why had they been in water?

“Why’d you run off like that?” the woman asked. She was still holding Aurora’s arm and, a little unsteady on her feet, she was grateful for the support.

Not knowing how to answer that question, Aurora remained silent hoping she’d be taken as too disoriented to answer.

“Delphine, you’re scaring me,” the woman pressed. “Should we… should I take you to the hospital? Can you make it back or do I need to call an ambulance?”

 _Delphine._ That was her then. The name was French but she seemed to be expecting her to understand English. Was she French? Canadian? American? She needed to pick one before this woman brought her to a doctor and drew unnecessary attention to whatever she was doing here.

“I’m OK,” she said, giving her words a French accent. “Please don’t call anyone.”

The woman closed her eyes, blowing out a long breath. “I don’t like this.”

 _Me neither._ Maybe she _should_ see a doctor, but she didn’t know if that would be safe.

“Please,” she pressed. “I’m just tired.”

To her surprise, the woman placed a hand on her cheek, rubbing her thumb tenderly under her eye. As she searched Aurora’s face, the love in her eyes was unmistakable and it felt like she was intruding on something private. All she could do for now though was play along, so she didn’t move away.

“It’s not just that,” the woman told her quietly. “Delphine, something's wrong. You need help.”

She was right of course, without realizing how right she was, but Aurora needed her to let it go before her worrying got her into trouble.

“OK,” she agreed, deflecting the problem for a later time. “OK, but tomorrow.”

The woman pressed her lips together unhappily before letting out a long sigh. “Tomorrow,” she repeated firmly. She rose up on her toes, taking Aurora’s face in both her hands and Aurora let her push her forehead against hers, confused but ready to play along if it meant keeping her this docile. “I love you,” she murmured.

She planted a quick kiss on her lips and Aurora was so startled by that she almost broke her façade.

 _‘Say you love her back,’ she told herself._ Her stomach squirmed with guilt for whatever con she was pulling on this poor woman but it helped to think that maybe she was a bad person. Maybe she wasn’t as American as she sounded. Or maybe she’d killed people or sold weapons or information to the Nazis. Maybe she deserved it. Bad people fell in love too.

“I love you too,” she made herself say.

The woman smiled softly at her and something in her face made Aurora hate the idea of hurting her. Whatever was going on, it was clear that her feelings were genuine. This woman cared very deeply for her and that meant Aurora could hurt her in ways that seemed unspeakably cruel. To use someone like this felt wrong all the way down to her bones. 

_Stop being so soft._

If only she could remember why she was pretending to be this woman’s lover, maybe she’d have better resolution. She knew she could ruin this woman simply by telling the right person about that kiss, maybe even get her killed or worse. That could be her leverage. But for what? Why couldn’t she remember?

_Maybe she’s the one who drugged me._

Aurora doubted that, but she almost wished she had drugged her. Then Aurora would know that she wasn't an innocent and it would simplify this situation considerably.

The woman took her hand, leading her patiently through the streets and stopping every once and a while to make sure she was alright. She was so wrapped up in her concern that it was easy for Aurora to pretend she just wasn’t feeling well. She wondered if the woman had seen whatever had happened to her but as much as she wanted to ask she knew that it was safer for her to speak as little as possible right now.

She led her to a little house at the edge of the woods with a garden out front and they went upstairs without turning on the lights. The sound of someone snoring in a room down the hall and the extra pair of shoes by the door told Aurora they shared the house with another person.

Hand in hand, they climbed the stairs to a little room with a slanted roof where they changed into dry clothes, pants and shirts made in a fashion Aurora had never seen before, and as they changed she noticed that the woman had tattoos on both her arms. She’d also noted a ring in her nose earlier and that her wrists were heavy with bracelets that jangled when she waved her hands as she spoke.

_Who is this woman? Where are we?_

Her head spun again and she shut her eyes tight, trying not to panic. What was she going to do if she couldn’t remember why she was here? She was going to get caught and then…

“You’re gonna be OK.” The woman had taken a seat beside her on the bed, wrapping an arm over her shoulders. “We’ll figure this out.”

Aurora nodded, unsure what to say to that. Figure what out?

The woman pulled her towards her, kissing the side of her head. “Try and get some sleep,” she instructed. “I’m right here if you need anything, OK? Wake me up if you need to, I promise I wont be grumpy.” She laughed, more out of nerves than humour Aurora thought, and Aurora drew up a smile at the joke. 

The bed was small for two people and Aurora found herself with an arm across her stomach and a leg pressing against the side of her own. It wasn't physically uncomfortable but once again it felt like she was violating something private and she really didn't like being held like this by someone she didn't know. 

_At least I got her to go to sleep._

She lay awake until the woman’s breathing evened out, counting to a thousand after that to make sure she was really asleep. Then she carefully wiggled out from under her arm and began a silent search of the room.

There were two suitcases, each filled with clothes unlike any she’d ever seen as well as bottles and capsules of what she quickly figured out were makeup. The packaging was strange but at least it was familiar. All of the writing was in English.

There were bracelets and necklaces and books on science as well as fiction, all English in one suitcase and a few in French in the other. She found a copy of Darwin’s _On the Origin of Species_ beside a Jane Austen novel but those were the only titles she recognized.

A device with glowing red numbers sat on the bedside table beside the lamp and after squinting at it for a few seconds Aurora figured out that it was a clock. The time read 2:23.

She glanced at the sleeping woman. She was so strange and she had all these books about science. Maybe she was a scientist. She might have even made the clock on the bedside table and it could also be why Aurora was here.

There was a backpack filled with wires and a heavy silver device that opened like a book and had a flat array of buttons on one side. The buttons had numbers and letters arranged a bit like a type writer but it didn’t seem to do anything even when she tapped on the buttons so she set it aside and moved on to searching the rest of the bag.

She pulled out another device, metal and plastic this time with several buttons on the side. It was so small, she couldn't imagine it did much. However to her great surprise, when she hit one of the little buttons on the side it lit up to display the time and date at the top of what looked like a photograph made of light.

Aurora blinked at it, stunned by what had just happened. After a while, her eyes adjusted to the brightness and she took in the photograph behind the clock. It was of her and the woman, sitting on a couch somewhere with drinks in their hands and staring at each other, lost in conversation as if they were the only two people in the room. They looked happy and peaceful in a way Aurora couldn’t remember feeling in a very long time and she came to two immediate conclusions.

The first conclusion was that these two women were in love. The second conclusion was that neither of them were her.

_She looks like me, but that’s not me. She’s someone else entirely._

Aurora knew she could play someone she wasn't. She'd fooled trained soldiers, it wasn't entirely impossible that she could fool herself but if the photograph wasn’t enough to convince her that this was someone else, the date at the top was. It read August 19th, 2018.

It couldn’t be right, but then what was she holding in her hands? What was this thing that held a photograph and could tell time and knew what day it was? All that in something so small and light? Nothing she'd seen, even the things she'd seen hidden by military intelligence, was anywhere near this.  

The photograph disappeared and she pressed the button again, bringing it back to convince herself that it was real. As she stared at it, the woman’s name came to her.

_Cosima._

She heard her easy laughter in her ears. She saw her smiling face, so full of expression, when she closed her eyes. This woman wasn’t evil she was the exact opposite of that. She was funny and brave and she was highly intelligent and exceptionally kind. Her morals were unquestionable and Delphine loved her more than anything else in this world.

Aurora was certain of this without knowing how and when she glanced over at Cosima’s sleeping form a little voice in the back of her head pleaded with her not to hurt her.

 _‘I wouldn’t hurt an innocent woman if I have no reason to,’_ _she promised_. ‘ _I don’t want to hurt her.’_

Who was she talking to? Was that Delphine, who she’d felt just now? Or was it simply the echo left behind by her love for this woman? Looking around now, Aurora sensed that the room was filled with her. It was as if someone had turned on a light and she knew that that doll on the dresser had belonged to her younger cousin and that she’d burned herself on the radiator when she was eight. She knew that this was her grandmother’s house and that her grandmother’s name was Annie.

_Is this how Alfred feels when he looks at the world?_

No. This wasn’t synesthesia this was something very different. Time travel. A psychic connection with a woman with her face. She couldn’t know the things she knew but she knew them anyway.

Cosima radiated more of Delphine than anything else. This woman was her treasure and looking at her now Aurora could hear and see and feel all the things Delphine loved about her as if they were a melody of light glowing around her.

_So what am I doing here then? I’m not Delphine, I’m Aurora… aren’t I?_

There was one way to know for sure. Aurora clutched her stomach through her shirt, flinching at a memory of pain. Delphine had been shot once, she had a scar.

She moved into the light of the window, lifting her shirt to look and let out a sigh. It wasn’t there. Her relief was short lived however because she had no idea why she was here and no way of getting home.

_This is a dream. It’s just a bad dream, none of this can be real._

She pulled at her hair, even pinched her arm until it turned red but the pain was real and so was all of this.

For a long time she sat with her back against the bed, thinking of her friends and family and listening to Cosima sleep. When her thoughts turned to Cosima, another question found its way into her head.

_If I’m here, where’s Delphine?_

She pushed her palms against her temples, frustrated but thinking with bitter amusement that at least no one here was a danger to her. She hadn't been this safe in a long time. Annie wouldn’t hurt her and Cosima was harmless whether or not she discovered Aurora wasn’t who she thought she was.  

_Harmless and very intelligent._

Auora turned around, looking her over as she debated her options. She’d probably be angry that Aurora had tricked her but if where Delphine was and how she had found herself here were connected then Cosima would also be cooperative.

She made her decision and reached out to shake Cosima’s shoulder. “Hey,” she said, dropping the accent. “Wake up.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first time writing Aurora. I am not gonna lie, I'm kinda in love with her and I hope I did her some justice lol.


	6. Chapter 6

Aurora watched, uncertain, as Cosima stared numbly at the ceiling from where she lay on the floor. She hadn’t said anything for almost five minutes now and the waiting was making her restless but she also didn’t think rushing her to come to terms with all of this was a helpful strategy.

When at last she spoke, her voice was dry. “Why didn’t you tell me this from the start?”

“I thought I was in occupied France,” Aurora reminded her. “I thought it was 1942.”

“Holy shit,” Cosima muttered. She’d said that several times already. She sat up. “Show me again.”

Aurora patiently lifted her shirt, revealing her unscarred skin.

“Shit.” Cosima took a deep breath, running her hands over her hair. When their eyes met, her expression hardened. “Bring her back,” she growled.

“I don’t know where she is,” Aurora told her again.

Cosima scoffed. “How can I believe that? You’re saying… what? You just popped out of 1942 and now she’s gone and you don’t know why? Why are you here instead of her?” Her hands flew the air as she spoke, stiff and agitated. “How did this even happen?”

She wasn’t taking this well at all.

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” Aurora tried but Cosima only narrowed her eyes and looked away.

“I should have noticed,” she said bitterly. “I knew something was wrong I just thought she was sick not…” she gestured angrily at Aurora. “Whatever the hell this is.”

Aurora thought it was ridiculous for her to expect herself to foresee this particular situation but she didn’t comment on that.

“You’ll wake up Annie,” she said calmly instead.

“Are you gonna lie to her too?” Cosima muttered.

“I did what I thought I needed to,” she reminded her. Cosima shot daggers at her but Aurora didn’t know enough about what was going on to waste time coddling her. She needed her to stop being so emotional. “You’re scared,” she continued evenly. “You don’t know where she is or if you’ll ever see her again but I promise you arguing with me isn’t going to help.”

The other woman groaned and closed her eyes, bringing her knees up to her face. Aurora thought she might be crying.

She sighed. “Cosima-“

“I’m thinking,” she snapped. “Just give me a sec.” After a moment, she rose her head, her eyebrows knitting together. “How do you know my name?”

_That’s complicated._

“Because Delphine knows it,” Aurora answered slowly. “I feel… pieces of her…”

Cosima shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

Aurora looked around the room, concentrating. “I know she came here almost every summer.” She tilted her head towards the suitcases. “I know the one on the left is hers but she packed some things that you forgot.” She looked at Cosima, debating her next words. “I know how much she loves you,” she added after a moment, hoping it sounded like an olive branch rather than a threat.  

Cosima faltered for a split second at the last comment but she quickly regained her composure, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You sure do,” she said accusingly. “And you’re OK with that? We’re not exactly out of the closet where you’re from.”

Aurora shrugged, knowing what she meant without recognizing the phrase. “I want to fix this as much as you do. I’m not going to waste time judging you for being in love.”

Seeming to accept that answer, Cosima rose to her feet, pacing back and forth. “OK, OK so you have a connection with her. Can you use that to find her?” She paused her pacing, frowning. “What if you switched places?”

“You mean what if she’s in 1942?” Aurora asked. _She won’t survive long if she is._

Delphine was a civilian who’d lived her entire life out of the shadow of war. A homosexual woman without papers and with ties to America who didn’t know to fear soldiers or hide any of that was going to be in a lot of trouble in occupied France. All it would take would be for someone to find her without identification, to have no one claim her. Being French wouldn’t save her, out of place as she was and especially walking around with Aurora’s face. They would think she was a spy and she’d be lucky if they skipped straight to the execution.

She didn’t say it out loud but she didn’t need to, she could see from the look on Cosima’s face that she was thinking something similar. “We don’t know if that’s what happened,” she insisted, trying to keep her calm.

“Uh, we don’t know anything right now.” Cosima continued her pacing with renewed fervor and her voice was boarding on hysterical. “We don’t even know if she’s alive. You might have replaced her entirely when you came here. What if she is there and someone found her? What if she’s gone?” She stopped in her tracks, her voice breaking. “What if we can’t get her back?”

She was letting her emotions take over again. They weren’t going to get anywhere if she couldn’t control herself.

“So you’re just going to give up on her?” Aurora challenged. Cosima’s eyes flared with anger but she plowed on. “Because that’s what I’m seeing right now.”

“I’m not-“ Cosima growled.

“You are,” she snapped. “You’re worrying about what might have happened instead of figuring out what you can do about what you know. Maybe she is dead.” Cosima flinched at that. “But maybe she’s still alive and she needs you to be better than this.”

Cosima’s anger boiled at the surface, her chest heaving but Aurora stared her down. She felt for her, she really did, but that was why she was being so hard on her now. That and she needed her.

“We should go back and look for her,” Cosima suggested when she managed to calm herself. “And if she’s not there, there might be a clue as to where she is.”

That sounded reasonable. And it might help Aurora get home too. Cosima didn’t seem to be very concerned about that right now but that was to be expected. She was safe, Delphine might not be and even though Aurora’s priority was still to return to her team, Cosima’s priority was going to be Delphine. Those two things didn’t need to conflict and she wasn’t ready to think about what she’d do if they did.

The other woman was already gathering up her clothes. “I’ll change in the bathroom this time,” she said.

Their eyes met and Aurora shifted uncomfortably but didn’t comment. She knew how violated she must be feeling and she regretted what she’d done but she didn’t think Cosima would believe her if she said it.

Cosima paused at the door, staring down at her hands. “You were wearing her clothes,” she mumbled.

That was true. She’d thought she’d just forgotten changing into them but knowing what she knew now it seemed more likely that she hadn’t been the one to put them on at all.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“It probably means you took the space she was in,” Cosima said heavily.

_So we’ve switched places… or I’ve killed her like you said._

“If she’s in 1942, it’s better if she’s wearing my clothes,” she pointed out.

Cosima nodded miserably. “You know, she’s stronger than you think,” she told her. “And I’m not giving up on her again.”

She left the room before Aurora could ask her what she meant by _again._

////

Cosima took another sip of coffee, stifling a yawn. She usually preferred tea but she hadn’t slept at all last night and her head felt like it was filled with fog.

They hadn’t found Delphine, not that she’d really expected to. They’d searched until the sun began to peek over the horizon, neither of them speaking to each other unless it was necessary. Then they’d returned to Annie’s house where Aurora had convinced her to lie to the poor woman about her granddaughter. She’d made up an excuse about them having surprise work stuff and they’d headed upstairs, Cosima burning with guilt and Aurora unable to make eye contact.

If they told her about Aurora, they’d have to tell her about Delphine getting shot and she didn’t know that yet. Cosima would have to tell her about Neolution and clones and she didn’t think she was ready to load that onto her, especially not when her granddaughter was missing. Aurora for her part seemed more comfortable lying than telling the truth.

Still, it felt wrong to keep it a secret and Cosima decided that if they didn’t find anything by that night she was going to tell Annie, no matter what Aurora said.

“It isn’t working again,” Aurora told her.

She was sitting on the floor by the radiator, Delphine’s laptop on her legs and a wireless mouse on the floor beside her. Cosima had fished it out of her suitcase when she’d realized Aurora was going to lose her battle with the touch pad.

Cosima was sitting on the bed, her legs dangling over the side with her own laptop sitting on her lap. She looked up from the article she’d been reading about St. Lynette ghost stories. It wasn’t very scientific, but nothing about this situation made any sense anyway and there _were_ several records of paranormal encounters. It seemed that the town had been on the boarder of occupied and free France during the German occupation in World War II and that many innocent people had lost their lives trying to cross over during that time period. Strange sightings of soldiers and civilians in old clothing who vanished into thin air centred around what was once a boarder through the town. It could be leaky space-time, if that were something that actually existed outside of science fiction.

“What?” Cosima mumbled.

She could barely look at Aurora. She was still angry with her for pretending to be Delphine and the fact that she looked so much like her only made it more difficult to face her. A few times as they’d searched she’d caught Aurora out of the corner of her eye and allowed herself to hope for a fraction of a second before she recognized who it was and that hope was yanked away.  

“The laptop wont turn back on.” Aurora flipped it over, dangling the screen over her knees and gave it a shake.

“Woah, hey don’t break it!” Cosima warned. “That doesn’t belong to you.”

 With a frustrated sigh, she set her own laptop aside and came to sit beside Aurora. Aurora held the computer up and she took it away from her, handling it far more carefully, and pressed the power button. Nothing happened.

“Was the battery low?” she asked.

Aurora shook her head. “I don’t know, how often do we need to change it?”

“You don’t…” Cosima closed her eyes, trying to be patient with her. _She’s from the 1940s, you’re lucky she knows how to type._ “Let’s try plugging it in,” she suggested.

She felt Aurora’s eyes on her as she fished out the charger and plugged the computer into the wall. She was a quick learner, carefully noting everything that Cosima did, and she was clever too. It hadn’t taken very long to explain to her how the mouse made the cursor move across the screen and how to use a search engine to find information.

The computer booted up, warning about an unauthorized shut down, but Cosima skipped the safe start up and logged her into Delphine’s account. When Delphine's home screen appeared, Cosima winced. Her background was a picture from a party they’d had at Alison’s house, a half drunk Cosima kissing a laughing Delphine on the cheek. Delphine had said she loved the way the picture felt, Cosima had loved the way she’d felt in the picture.

Aurora dropped her gaze away from the screen and Cosima quickly hit the button at the bottom to open Google before the tears burning behind her eyes leaked out.

“There,” she said flatly, handing Aurora back the laptop. “It remembered the tabs you had open so you don’t have to start your search again. Just be careful with it, OK?”

“I wrote down all the relevant information anyway,” Aurora told her, holding up the book Cosima had given her to write in.

Cosima had shown her how to open a word document, and how to copy and paste but she preferred a pen and paper. There wasn’t a lot written in it yet.

“Uh huh.” Cosima got to her feet, returning to her own search.

As they each went back to work, their usual uncomfortable silence fell between them. Cosima had never been shy about her body but it bothered her that Aurora had seen her so intimately both physically and emotionally through her disguise as Delphine. She felt violated and she felt like Delphine had been violated too. And, if she were honest with herself, she was angry at Aurora for not being Delphine. It was completely unfair but for the second time the love of her life was gone without a trace and that wasn’t really fair either.

“What if we’re going about this from the wrong angle?” Aurora said, setting the laptop to the side. Cosima noticed that this time she lay it down gently. “What if it’s not just about the town? This was where Delphine was but I wasn’t here when the switch happened. I was in the woods near Paris.”

Cosima raised an eyebrow. “You wanna get the Earth’s rotation involved?” She was only half joking.

“This,” Aurora said, carefully lifting the computer.

 She spun it around to reveal the background picture of Delphine and Cosima.

“Why are you looking at that?” She kept her voice low but she couldn’t stop her anger from giving it an edge.

“Because I can’t figure out why we look the same,” Aurora answered her, ignoring it.

Cosima blinked. It was would have been funny in a different situation. She was so used to having other people with the same face in her life it had seemed almost normal that Delphine and this woman were identical. _Almost_ identical anyway. Delphine’s voice was different, it was softer, and she didn’t hold herself the same way. Delphine was like water, both strong and yielding but this woman was like a rock. She wondered if this was what it felt like for people to look at her and her sisters.

“I don’t think we’re related,” Aurora went on. “You said her family never left France but my father’s family never lived there and it’s been over a hundred years since my mother’s family did. And even if we were related, you’re a scientist, is it possible that she would look exactly like me?”

It was something at least. Cosima shook her head. “Not really, no. Got any theories you’d like to share?” she prompted.

She hesitated. “One.” Cosima leaned back, giving Aurora her full attention and, emboldened, she continued. “What if we’re the same person.”

Cosima snorted.

“I don’t mean that she’s me in seventy years,” Aurora defended. “I mean what if she’s me again… after I die…”

“You mean reincarnation,” Cosima guessed. She wove her fingers together behind her head, leaning on her hands as she thought it over. “That could be why you know so much about her,” she realized. “And, uh, I guess that might explain why you look alike. The timeline fits too if you… well, died in the eighties.”

She looked Aurora over again, trying to see her as Delphine before there was a Delphine. It wasn’t entirely convincing but then again what had she been before she was Cosima? A little cluster of DNA in one of Kendall’s cells? A soul floating out in space?

“Right,” Aurora was already moving along as if Cosima had confirmed it. “What if something in this town left us connected enough that we got mixed up somehow.”

“You think the universe made a mistake?” She shrugged. “I don’t see why it couldn’t. Nature makes mistakes all the time. You and I are the product of millions and millions of little mistakes in the genetic code.” Her hands flew through the air as she explained and Aurora watched them, looking confused. “Nature it… it screws up. Sometimes randomly but sometimes there’s a reason. So if there _is_ a reason for your switch-up… then maybe we can undo it if we figure out what it is.”

“Delphine spent her summers in this village,” Aurora said. “She has a strong connection with it. And… and so do I.”

Cosima frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

Aurora wore a haunted expression and suddenly she really did look like a ghost. 

“I’ve been here before,” she told her heavily. “This is where René died.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not the biggest fan of the term homosexual, I find it clinical and in this case inaccurate but I also think it'd be the term Aurora would know.
> 
> I mostly made up that stuff about their families but I do know that Delphine's family is probably all French and Aurora's mother is French Canadian and her father is Jewish-German. So it's reasonable that they don't intersect.


	7. Chapter 7

Aurora told Cosima her story slowly, painfully, and the other woman listened attentively from where she still sat on the bed.

“Wow… OK… Wow, that actually explains a lot,” Cosima said when she’d finished. Aurora looked up at her, hurt and feeling terribly exposed. “I’m sorry,” she added quickly. “That’s… really terrible… but it’s what Delphine was dreaming about!”

“She dreamt about it?” Aurora was taken aback by that.

“Yeah. Yeah she didn’t understand what was happening but she saw you… uh… you know…” She grit her teeth sympathetically. “And then after…” she made a stabbing motion with her hand which Aurora didn’t really think was much better than actually saying it. “Then he turned into me.”

“That isn’t what actually happened,” Aurora told her. Although in a way it did make sense that her feelings for René would be projected by Delphine as Cosima.

 “Yeah. Obviously.” Cosima was deep in thought. She pulled her legs up, crossing them underneath herself. “Maybe it’s him. Maybe _he_ wanted you here.”

“René is dead,” Aurora reminded her, her heart aching.

“Well, yes unfortunately. But technically so are you,” Cosima pointed out. Her hands were flying through the air as she spoke and if Aurora hadn’t seen her sleeping she’d wonder if the other woman ever stopped moving. “So, he’s here as a ghost or something and he sees Delphine every summer but she’s a kid, she doesn’t look like you yet. Then she comes back now and he recognizes her- or at least he thinks he does and-“ she smushed her hands together, “he manages to pull you here instead.”

Aurora blinked at her.

“I’m working with information I have OK?” Cosima said defensively. “I know that none of this makes sense.”

But that wasn’t what she’d been thinking. “I could talk to René?” she asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” Cosima admitted. “I don’t understand any of this. I’m just pulling at things in the dark.” Their eyes met and for the first time since Aurora had revealed herself she saw Cosima let her walls down. “It’s possible,” she told her. “I think if you have the chance to talk to him again you should take it.”

It was the most progress she’d made with her all day but Aurora had to look away from the kindness in her expression. It was too soft for the sharpness of her pain.

“And then he could undo this,” she added, doing her best to remain focused on the task in front of them. Whatever was happening, René was dead but Cosima, Delphine and her team were still alive. They needed her first. She made herself look up at Cosima. “And we can all get our lives back.” Cosima shot her a strained smile at that and she nodded. “OK, so how do we find him?”

Cosima shrugged. “When do you find ghosts? At night.”

////

 About two hours later, Cosima had fallen asleep on the bed. She’d been laying on her stomach, still looking for information that could help Delphine, but her exhaustion must have caught up with her.

 She was wearing Delphine’s clothes. Aurora hadn’t commented on it but she had a sense of what things belonged to Delphine and which to Cosima and she was certain that those clothes were Delphine’s.

She’d decided to let Cosima sleep. She didn’t really think there was much more they could find out from the laptops about what was going on anyway. They had a theory and they needed to test it, but it was still about an hour and a half before the sun would go down. The other woman needed to be ready and resting was the best way for her to do that right now.  

Besides, Aurora had started a project of her own, when she'd discovered what a wealth of information she could pull out of the silver device and she wasn’t entirely sure how Cosima would react to it. So she was keeping it a secret for now and it was much easier to do that when Cosima was asleep.

Staring at the screen made her eyes sore so she decided to take a break, carefully closing the laptop and plugging it in on top of the dresser. She understood why Cosima was so protective of it. She knew how it felt to be in a world made of glass shards, where little things cut at wounds so it seemed like they’d always be reopening. The other woman was doing her best to hide it but she was no spy and it was clear that she was frightened and in pain and holding on to the little things that belonged to Delphine must have given her some semblance of control over all of this.

Glancing at her now, Aurora couldn’t help feeling attached. It wasn’t they way Delphine felt about her of course, whatever was going on they were still different people. It was more like how she felt about Harry or Neil, or how’d she’d felt about Josée back in Ville-Marie. Cosima was the kind of person Aurora had an unrelenting weakness for, one of those precious human beings who had been left uncorrupted by the evil in this world.

She stood up, stretching her legs, and went to take Cosima’s laptop off of the bed and plug it in next to Delphine's. Cosima had told her it wasn’t good to let the power run out and she didn’t want to break such an important tool when they only had two of them.

Before closing the screen, she noticed she’d been looking at photographs of Delphine. It was clear that she didn’t like Aurora looking at them but she couldn’t help being drawn to her double. She had a lightness to her that Aurora didn’t recognize, her expression peacefully happy and, even without having met her, Aurora found she'd developed a fondness for her too.

Delphine hadn’t been spared terrible things, she’d had to fight for a very long time but her fight had ended in joy and love. Aurora found herself wondering if she’d be allowed to find the same someday in this lifetime. Or was Delphine lost too now? A year of peace, was that all she’d be allowed? How long would Aurora get? What would Cosima do if Delphine never came back? Life could go on but nothing would ever fill that ache entirely.

_‘I’ll fix this for you,’ she promised them. ‘I won’t let death take this away from you.’_

As always, it was a promise she knew she might break, but one she told herself she could keep anyway.

She shut the lamp for Cosima and decided to risk going downstairs for something to eat. The war had long ended in 2018 and so had rations. Despite all that was happening, it was good to eat in such abundance again.

Annie was in the kitchen, reading a book, and she smiled at Aurora when she came down.

“How is work?” she asked in French.

Aurora smiled back, doing her best to appear as relaxed as her granddaughter would have been. “I’m tired of it,” she told her, hoping to hide herself in fatigue. She thought of Delphine and added, “And I’d prefer to spend my time here with you.”

“I understand,” Annie told her, setting down her book. “You’ve always been dedicated to your work.”

Opening the refrigerator, Aurora forced another smile.  “It will be over soon,” she promised her. _I hope._

She found a pear, big and ripe, and took it out to cut into pieces. She offered one to Annie too but the older woman declined.

“Don’t stay up too late,” Annie warned her cheerfully as she cut up the fruit. “You know what mother would say to me, the work you do when you should be asleep-“

“Is work you’ll have to do again,” Aurora finished with a smile.

“Yes,” Annie chuckled.

Aurora stopped what she was doing, eyes widening in surprise and she was grateful that her face was hidden from Annie’s view. She didn’t know that phrase because Delphine knew it, she knew it because she’d often heard Josée saying it to her little girl.

Memories flashed before her minds eye. She remembered a child held at gunpoint by a soldier, Josée’s relief that he'd let her go. Aurora remembered Josée taking a grenade from her hand to throw at the soldiers because they’d been caught before they could carry out their plan. She remembered how she couldn't stop her little girl from finding her body.

She remembered a child running onto a bridge shrieking at the soldiers responsible for her mother's death and Aurora remembered begging Harry not to blow it up with her on iteven as René urged her that they had to. 

 _Annie._ She was that Annie, that tiny soul Aurora hadn’t been able to bring herself to sacrifice. She was Josée’s child.

Turning to look at her, Aurora could see what she’d missed in her face the first time she’d looked at it. She’d had years, her skin had wrinkled and her once light curly hair now fell in wisps of grey but she had the same eyes she’d had so long ago.

She was so beautiful. Aurora could only hope she’d known joy but she also knew that her life had been filled with heartache too. She’d lost her mother and father. Then she’d lost her son, Delphine’s father. Was she going to lose her granddaughter too?

“What’s wrong my dear?” Annie asked.

Aurora caught herself staring and gave her head a slight shake. “I’m sorry” she told her. “I’m just tired.”

There was so much she wanted to say to her but she couldn’t tell her who she was, how could she? How could she bring herself to tell her that it was her fault that her mother had died and now it might be her fault that she’d never see her granddaughter again either? What could she possibly say to her that would justify that kind of pain?

_I'm so sorry, Annie._

Death kept coming, Aurora thought as she forced herself to return to the pear, it kept coming and all she could do was ward it off until it came again for someone else.

////

The sky that night was clear but the air was thick from the humidity and the pressure of what they were about to do.

Looking for ghosts in the dark felt like a Hail Mary but Cosima wasn’t sure how she was going to handle it if it didn’t work.

_But maybe she’s still alive and she needs you to be better than this._

Aurora’s words stuck in her head. They’d stung then and they still stung now but maybe she was right. If she truly wanted her back she was going to have to fight for it and, for Delphine, she was willing to keep throwing punches until she knew she was safe.

Metaphorical punches. Unless her fists could tear a hole in space-time. If this didn’t pan out she wasn’t sure she could stop herself from trying that.

“What do I do if we see him?” Aurora asked beside her.

She clutched her notebook in her hands, squeezing it as they waited.  She had taken a new set of Delphine’s clothes, khaki pants and a plain shirt she’d tucked in under her belt. Something about the way she wore them, how she wore her hair, looked off but Cosima couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was.

“Just, uh, say hello I guess?” Cosima suggested with a shrug. She turned to her. “Are you nervous?”

It wasn’t hard for her to imagine what Aurora must be feeling right now. To have your lost love come back to you like this was cruel. After Evie had told her she’d been shot, how many times had Cosima listened to that last message Delphine had left her? Even if Aurora could speak to René he would still be dead and where would that leave them? This was goodbye at best.

Aurora stared forward, expressionless. “I’m ready if that’s what you mean.”

It was as if she’d lowered a wall between them. Whatever she was feeling now, she wasn’t going to share it with Cosima.

“Why do you still have that?” Cosima asked, changing the subject. She tilted her head towards the book. “You planning on taking notes?”

Aurora glanced at her, clutching the book tighter. “It may not even work,” she mumbled.  

Cosima frowned, confused. “What may not even work?”

“I’m not sure if the book will come with me,” she answered elusively.  

“What are you talking about?” Cosima found herself laughing nervously. “What’s in there?”

Aurora opened her mouth but she quickly shut it again without speaking. The air between them sparked.

“What did you do?” Cosima asked stiffly.

“I-“ But suddenly Aurora’s attention was yanked elsewhere, here eyes wide.

“You see him,” Cosima guessed. Whatever was in the book, it was going to have to wait.

“You don’t?” she asked distractedly. She took a step forward, reaching out her hand. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. There were tears in her eyes and Cosima knew that she was no longer talking to her. Aurora was listening intently to whatever was in front of her and after a moment she let out a weak chuckle. “I miss you.”

It was like listening to one end of a telephone call and Cosima would have tried to give them some privacy but she couldn’t risk losing track of Aurora. So she stayed where she was and the other woman didn’t protest.

“Neither of us belong here, my love,” Aurora told him. “I need your help… yes….”

When she reached out her hand again, her fingers curled as if she were holding onto something and to Cosima’s astonishment she began growing transparent. But it wasn’t just her body. This time it was everything she touched, her clothes, the book. It wasn’t happening the way it had happened with Delphine and a terrible thought crossed Cosima’s mind.

 _What if this time, she just disappears and Delphine doesn’t come back?_ Panicked, she reached out to grab onto her, her only thought being that if she lost Aurora she might lose Delphine for good.

Aurora was ice cold and Cosima felt that cold seep into her too, saw her own hands become transparent but she didn’t let go. For a split second she saw two people in front of her, Aurora and man who she realized must be René.

Then her vision went black, sound, smell and touch vanishing along with it. When they returned again she felt the warmth of Aurora’s arm first. It was night, so silent and dark that it took a few seconds for her to realize that her other senses had returned and longer still to realize that they were surrounded by trees.

“Uh… where are we?” Cosima asked shakily.

“Keep your voice down,” Aurora warned, pulling her arm away. “I think we’re back.”

“You mean back where _you_ came from,” Cosima whispered. _Shit._ “That wasn’t what was supposed to happen…”

They were close enough together for her to make out Aurora’s nod through the dark. “I know. I’m sorry, he was just as confused as we were… But I think Delphine is here too,” she added slowly.

Cosima’s heart leapt. “What? Where? How do you-“ But Aurora put a finger to her own lips to shush her and she fell silent, letting her concentrate.

“She’s afraid,” she told her. “But I think she can feel me too… I can’t….” She suddenly grabbed Cosima’s arm. “C’mon, hurry before I lose it.”

Her sudden movement had startled her but Cosima didn’t argue. She let Aurora lead her through the dark woods of 1942, following what she could only guess was a psychic trail and she was so intent on their destination, on the thought that they might finally find Delphine, that she forgot how absurd all of this was.


	8. Chapter 8

Delphine limped through the dark woods, both grateful and nervous for the cover of night. Her leg throbbed with each step but at least it had stopped bleeding and she hadn’t heard anyone in hours.

If that man came back, the one dressed in a soldier’s uniform, she wasn’t sure what she’d do. A shudder passed down her spine at the thought and she stopped to rest against a tree to ease her screaming muscles. She was so thirsty but she hadn’t found any water. At this point she would have drunk right out of a puddle if she’d seen one. She’d only been lost in these woods for two days but she’d lost a good deal of blood when the bullet had grazed her leg and she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since she’d found herself here.

The man hadn’t even been shooting at her. He’d been after another man dressed in a white shirt and brown overalls, something her grandfather might have worn, but he’d been so young. He’d saved her, shouting at her to run, but he’d been hit in the back with a bullet before he could explain why. She’d seen the life leave his eyes even before his legs crumpled underneath him.

She took a step forward, stumbled, and crashed painfully into the dirt. A bolt shot up her thigh when her injury collided with a root and she bit down on her hand to stop herself from crying out because if the man dressed as a soldier was still out here and he found her…

Tears streaked down her cheeks and her frustration that they’d dehydrate her more only fueled them.

_I’m going to die out here._

Her only consolation was the thought that whatever had brought her here hadn’t gotten Cosima too, but that wasn’t enough to quell her despair at the unfairness of it all or calm the fear that was making her head spin. She was still never going to see her again.

_What soldier?_

Delphine was startled out of her misery by the sudden intrusion of a woman's voice in her head, clearer and louder than any thought she'd ever had. 

_Delphine, concentrate. Is the soldier still here?_

It was the woman from her dream, the one whose voice was a corrupted version of her own, and she wondered wretchedly if she was beginning to hallucinate. The thought brought fresh tears to her eyes.

_Stay where you are. We’ll find you._

She tried to stand up again but she was so tired it was like trying to move through wet cement. Instead she sat leaning against the tree, aching and crying, until she heard footsteps approaching her and her blood ran cold as she lifted her head to see a pair of figures making their way through the trees.

Again, she struggled to stand up, relying heavily on the trunk for support. This time her terror won over her exhaustion and she stood facing them, gripping hard on the stick she’d sharpened to point as she’d hidden during the day.

“Delphine?”

The first figure was only a few feet away now but her fear vanished completely as she recognized that voice, recognized her face. Using more energy than she’d thought she had left she rushed forward to meet her, the stick tumbling out of her hands.

Arms encircled her, holding her up and she leaned heavily on the other woman before Cosima lowered them both to their knees and she buried her face into her neck, shaking with relief.

“I found you, I found you,” Cosima repeated breathlessly. Delphine let out a sob, overwhelmed by her sudden appearance, and Cosima tightened her arms around her. “I’m right here. I’ve got you,” she murmured against her hair. “Oh god, what have you been through? Are you OK?”

“She’s dehydrated.”

 It was the same voice from Delphine’s head, but she didn’t want to move to see where it was coming from. She was so tired and she felt safe nestled into Cosima. In her arms, her heart was whole and the current strains of her physical existence were easier to bear. 

Cosima shifted Delphine’s weight onto one shoulder. “There’s a water bottle in my bag,” she said and Delphine realized that she was speaking to the source of the voice. It wasn't just in her head this time. “Could you get it out for her.”

Delphine watched the other woman lean down, gasping in shock when she came face to face with her and found her own reflection staring back at her.

“Who…?” she asked weakly.

“This is Aurora,” Cosima told her. She stroked Delphine's cheek gently before accepting the bottle from her double. Delphine watched hungrily as she unscrewed the cap and brought the bottle to her mouth. Questions could wait. “Slowly, OK?” Cosima urged.

She couldn’t remember water ever tasting so sweet and it took another reminder from Cosima for her to slow down so she didn’t choke on it. She gave it to her in doses, making her pause in between, kissing her forehead and murmuring words of encouragement while she caught her breath.

 Waves of impatience rolled off of Aurora, so much so it was almost as if Delphine were feeling them too, but the mysterious woman stood guard over them without comment.

When at last she’d drunk the entire bottle, she pushed her face into Cosima’s shoulder again, breathing her in and letting some of her strength return to her body. Cosima pulled her closer, planting several kisses on top of her head before Aurora spoke again.

“We have to get out of here,” she urged. “I know where my team is camped… they should still be there…”

_I have no idea how I’m going to explain this to them._

Once again, the thought wasn’t hers. It was Aurora's voice, definitely inside her head, but there was too much happening for Delphine to wonder about that right now.

“Can you walk?” Aurora asked.

She lifted her head, staring uneasily back at her unexplained double. “I-… I don’t know.”

“Try,” Aurora told her firmly. “It’s not safe out here alone like this.” Her words were rough but Delphine could sense that she wasn’t being unkind.

“Hey, give her a minute,” Cosima protested.

“No, she’s right,” Delphine said. “There- there’s someone out here. I saw him kill a man…”

’What the hell…” Cosima gasped. “It’s still a warzone out here isn’t it? Oh shit… we’re lucky no one found you…”

Delphine wondered what she meant by that but before she could ask Aurora was urging them on again.

“Quiet. We need to go,” she said sternly.

With Cosima’s help Delphine managed to get to her feet, avoiding putting any weight on her right leg.

“Watch her right leg,” Aurora warned, keeping her voice low. She came over to her right side, sliding an arm under her shoulder to support her. “The camp’s not far,” she told her. “You can do this.”

“I’ve got you,” Cosima encouraged softly from her other side.

Her presence had given Delphine a newfound strength and the water had done much to fortify it. She'd thought she’d never see her again, but here she was appearing out of nowhere right when she’d needed her the most.

She took a tentative step forward, then another, and slowly the three of them made their way through the darkness.

///

“So are you gonna explain to us what exactly is going on?” Neil asked, arms crossed over his chest.

“You’ve been missing for two days,” Alfred added quietly.

It was still night, most of the other men were sleeping and the rest were on watch, but Aurora’s team were all up and gathered around her. She’d put Delphine and Cosima in one of the smaller tents, where they could be left undisturbed. She didn’t want anyone getting too close to them yet, not until she had a better handle on what was going on.

“Something happened beyond my control,” she told them. “And I found them.” She gestured towards the tent, watching the others carefully.

“Do you think you can be more specific?” Harry asked flatly.

“No,” Aurora answered evenly.

They stared at each other for several seconds and she worried briefly that Harry was going to challenge her but he only shrugged and looked away. He’d been testing her lately and she knew part of that was her fault, and part of that was because he was so young, but she wasn’t going to stand for him causing trouble just to prove a point.

“Are you related?” Tom asked.

Back in the tent, Delphine was talking to Cosima. Aurora felt her guilt at her being there, her fear for her. Delphine’s emotions blazed up like a bright wall of fire in front of her and she clenched her teeth, trying to clear it.

“That’s kind of a stupid question, isn’t it?” Neil said and she was grateful that he’d answered for her. “They have the same face.”

“I meant the other one,” Tom clarified, throwing him a look.

“They’re family,” Aurora told them simply, realizing as she said it how true it was.

“What are they doing here?” Tom asked. “I don’t mean to be blunt, but we don’t need more people knowing where we are. Are they in trouble?”

Delphine and Cosima were still talking and Aurora was being bombarded by rushes of emotion. A swell of affection this time. Love, beautiful but pulling at her attention when she needed it here.

_‘Delphine, I’m sorry, I can’t concentrate with you awake,’ she thought. ‘I need you to go to sleep.’_

Her agreement came instantaneously.

_‘OK, I’ll try.’_

Aurora knew that she meant it. The link between them was getting stronger with each passing minute and it made her far more cooperative than Cosima had been. Already a bond was forming between the two of them. She liked Delphine immediately for her courage and her passion and she knew Delphine was fond of her for very similar reasons. She knew what she feared and what kept her fighting. She knew her proudest moment and her deepest shame and Aurora knew the same. They saw each other for exactly who the other was, raw and exposed, and it made them kin.

“She wouldn’t have brought them here if they weren’t,” Alfred defended and once again she was grateful for not having to speak.

“The one with glasses is pretty weird,” Harry conceded.

“You’re one to talk,” Tom joked, gesturing towards Harry's glasses, and Harry hit him in the arm good-naturedly.

“I mean she's definitely American. I can’t see her blending in as a French civilian, can you?” Harry went on. “Who are they?”

“And what the hell are you guys wearing?” Tom added, gesturing towards Delphine’s clothing which Aurora still had on.

“It’s a long story,” Aurora answered evasively, Delphine’s conversation with Cosima was coming to an end and she struggled to put herself back into her own head. “But you’re right. Neither of them belong here. I just need a bit of time to figure out what to do with them.”

“It’s not just that they don’t fit in, is it?” Alfred guessed. He and Aurora shared a look and she thought he’d probably figured out more about the pair of them than he was letting on.

“No,” Aurora admitted. “Delphine is French but Cosima is American and they don’t live here. They don’t have papers and Cosima can’t speak French or German. We can’t leave them here or they’ll be killed.”

“So we’re getting them out of the country?” Neil guessed.

Aurora shook her head. “Not we. I need to handle this on my own and you have work to do. We all do,” she added. “I just need to keep them here until I can figure out what to do with them. I know this is a lot to ask but-” 

“She’s your sister,” Neil finished solemnly. Aurora wondered if he was thinking of his own family and what he’d do if he’d had a chance to save them. “I say we let them stay. We can put them to use around the camp.”

“I agree,” Alfred said and the other two nodded. 

“Thank you.” Aurora ran her gaze over her team, touched by their support. She knew she was asking a lot of them.

“You should all get some sleep,” Neil suggested. “Except you Harry, you’re with me.”

Neil and Harry left to go on patrol and the rest of them headed off to bed for what was left of the night. Aurora wished she could have explained more, but it wasn’t something they needed to worry about right now. Unless….

She remembered her notebook, still hidden underneath her shirt, and quickly banished the thought from her mind. She was pretty sure Delphine was asleep but she didn’t want her or Cosima to know about it. Not yet at least. It was the one thing she’d managed to keep from Delphine and she hoped she could keep it hidden for just a bit longer.

///

Cosima watched Aurora speaking with the men in the camp from where she sat in the entrance of the tent. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, and their faces were obscured by darkness, but their body language made her think they were arguing.

 “They don’t like that she brought us here,” Delphine told her quietly. She was laying in Aurora’s sleeping bag, meant to be trying to get some rest. “They’re very confused too. They don’t understand why she was gone for so long.”

Cosima had set herself down right next to her, their legs touching through the fabric because she wanted to be able to feel where she was. Now, she reached down to stroke her face.

“You’re supposed to be sleeping not mind reading,” she scolded gently, but she couldn’t deny that it was nice to know what was going on.

“I can’t help it,” Delphine answered simply. “It would be like trying not to hear.” She sighed. “Why are we like this?”

Cosima shook her head. “I don’t know. This whole thing is pretty messed up.”

“I’m sorry.” Delphine’s face fell. “You shouldn’t have been mixed up in this… after all you’ve already been through…”

“Oh, no,” Cosima took her hand. “No. It’s not like that, I _want_ to be here.” Delphine frowned at her, not understanding. “OK well, obviously I don’t actually want to be here. Though it is pretty cool that we’ve traveled through time. H. G. Wells would be totally jealous.” She was rambling but Delphine chuckled at her and she smiled. “I’m not mixed up in this OK? I’m part of it. If you’re stuck here then I want to be here too.”

Eyes shining, Delphine reached up to touch her cheek. “You know, if we weren’t hidden in an allied spy camp in 1942, I’d kiss you.”

“Yeah, the forties sucked for a lot of reasons,” Cosima agreed. “But that did sound kinda romantic.”

Delphine made a sudden face.

“What?” Cosima asked.

“Aurora wants me to go to sleep,” she told her. “She says we’re distracting her.”

“What is she spying on us?” It was Cosima’s turn to make a face. “That’s creepy as shit.”

“She’s not used to this either,” Delphine defended. “And, you know…. she cares about us. She’s trying to protect us.”

“Yeah, it’s an adjustment for everyone,” Cosima muttered, not ready to respond to the second part.

Delphine had taken an instant liking to Aurora and, as much as Cosima could tell, Aurora had formed the same attachment to her. Something about how closely they were sharing their thoughts must have left them open to each other. It made sense, Cosima guessed, that if you could see someone that completely it would difficult not to care.

She wanted to ask her more about it, but Delphine was closing her eyes and it wasn’t an entirely horrible idea for her to be getting some rest.

“Lay down,” Delphine instructed softly, tugging at her sleeve. “You haven’t been sleeping either and there are still a few hours before morning.”

Had Aurora told her that? Or could she see it on her face?

“I don’t know why we can’t go out tonight,” Cosima complained, but she was already easing herself down beside Delphine’s left side. She squirmed closer to her, giving her a one-armed squeeze in place of a kiss from where she lay sideways and leaving her arm draped over her so she’d feel her when she closed her eyes. “Straight women cuddle too right?” she asked sleepily before letting out a wide yawn. “Whatever, I don’t really care.”

Delphine turned her head towards her, clutching her forearm. “Neither do I. And Aurora thinks it’s too dangerous to go out tonight.”

Cosima sighed but she didn’t argue. “At least now we’re together,” she mumbled, eyes closing. “I missed you so much.”

“I thought I’d never see you again,” Delphine admitted, echoing her own sentiment. Cosima felt her fingers brush along her jaw. “But you found me,” she whispered incredulously.

Cosima smiled. “That’s what we do isn't it? Now go to sleep before Aurora gets mad at us again.”

Delphine chuckled at her. “Sleep well, my love.”

“You too.”


	9. Chapter 9

“So am I gonna live?” Tom smiled at his own joke as Delphine finished examining the bullet wound on his stomach.

It had scarred over nearly completely with no swelling or sign of infection, but it was still large enough that she could imagine what the damage must have looked like when it was fresh. She knew, because Aurora knew, that they’d nearly lost him.

“You’re healing very well,” she told him, smiling back politely. “Just keep it clean and pay attention if it starts hurting.”

“Are you really a doctor?” he asked, as he covered it back up.

Delphine raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re asking me now?”

He lifted his hands apologetically. “Sorry, it’s just… we don’t know a lot about you and Cosima. It’s so weird, you look just like Aurora but she wont tell us anything. She never mentioned a sister.”

“Neither of us knew,” Delphine answered evasively, busying herself taking inventory of their medical supplies. Was this really all they had? “But yes,” she told him. “I’m really a doctor.”

They were sitting outside, warm already under the morning sun despite the shade given by the canopy. Aurora had set her and Cosima to work hours ago and Tom was her third patient that day. Cosima was with Aurora, helping her set up training exercises for the new recruits. Neither of them liked being separated but at least she knew Aurora would keep her safe.

“And Cosima,” Tom went on. “She’s… different. How did you find her? There aren’t many Americans out here.”

Delphine shot him a tight smile but didn’t reply. “You’re running low on antibiotics,” she said instead, changing the subject. “And gauze and…” she shook her head. “… everything…” She hated to think what might happen to Aurora, or Harry or Alfred or any of the others if they were seriously injured and this was all they had to work with.

“It’s hard to get supplies out here,” Tom reminded her amicably. He stood up and Delphine expected him to leave, but he hesitated. “You don’t have to tell us why you’re here,” he said after a moment. “Aurora trusts you, and I trust Aurora. But you must know you two stick out.”

Delphine regarded him carefully, her old instincts of protectiveness and secrecy stirring up. Tom seemed kind enough, but her first priority was to keep Cosima safe.

“We are aware of that,” she said calmly.

“I’m just saying people are going to ask questions,” Tom warned her. “And, from my experience, keeping people from what you don’t want them to know is a lot easier when you have answers that will put them at ease.”

“You mean lies,” Delphine clarified. Those she was no stranger to, but Cosima… wasn’t quite as skilled at avoiding suspicion or keeping secrets.

Tom shrugged. “It’s just a suggestion. You’re safe with us though. Well…” he laughed dryly. “As safe as it gets. But just keep it in mind.” He started to walk away. “And keep that cut on your leg clean,” he added over his shoulder. “We really are tight on supplies.”

She watched him go, her stomach left prickling by their conversation. He was right, times were tense in 1942 and people hammered down by war were suspicious of what they didn't know. If they were going to stay here for any length of time then she and Cosima were going to need to make up a story about who they were. One both of them could keep up without getting themselves into trouble.

Closing her eyes, she reached out to Aurora, hoping to make contact before another patient came along. The distance made it more difficult but soon she felt her already familiar presence.

 _‘Cosima and I need to discuss a cover story,’_ _she told her. ‘When can we see each other again?’_

_‘Soon,’ Aurora answered. ‘An hour maybe. I need to talk to you about something too anyway.’_

There was a pause in which Aurora flickered out of reach and Delphine thought that was end of the conversation until she felt her back in her head again.

_‘Cosima wants to know how your leg is,’ she added, feeling slightly exasperated but mostly sympathetic. ‘She’s worried about you… and I don’t think she trusts me.’_

_‘I’m fine. Give her some time, she isn’t connected to you like I am,’ Delphine pointed out fairly. ‘What could you possibly hide from us? Unless… unless she doesn’t trust me either…’_

She hadn’t meant to send that last thought and she’d taken herself by surprise with it. Even now she couldn’t stop herself from worrying that she’d done too much damage to ever truly earn Cosima’s trust back. Her heart ached at the thought.

Aurora understood though and Delphine felt her sympathy like a warm wind.

_‘We all have things we want to be forgiven for,’ she reminded her. ‘And whatever the rest, Cosima is choosing to be with you. That sounds like forgiveness to me.’_

Delphine smiled gratefully, knowing Aurora would feel what she couldn’t see. Although she couldn’t entirely bring herself to believe it, hearing someone else say it made her feel better. They let their connection linger for a few more seconds, not needing words to understand each other. Then Aurora severed it to get back to work and Delphine returned to taking inventory of their medical supplies as she waited for another patient.

///

“Again,” Aurora called.

Cosima groaned internally, still trying to catch her breath, but she did as she asked and streaked out between the two wooden shields they’d set up as cover.

“Bang.”

“Bang.”

“Bang.”

Three of the recruits pretended to shoot at her with their stick guns. The other two must have thought they didn’t have the shot. She leaned on the wood, sweating and wishing they’d had shorts to give her instead of the brown and grey pants and long sleeved shirt she was wearing now. Even with the sleeves rolled up, it was too hot.

“Hugo hit her,” Aurora decided.

“This is ridiculous,” one of them, who Cosima guessed probably wasn’t Hugo, complained. “When can we practice with real guns?” They all had French accents and Cosima didn’t know them well enough to distinguish their voices from each other.

“When we have real guns,” Aurora answered evenly.

“Uh, I’m not doing this if you guys have real guns,” Cosima called, popping her head up over the shield.

The recruits laughed. Aurora didn’t.

“You’re all tracking rather than catching, right?” she asked instead. “But Cosima was moving from left to right this time. All of you are right handed and you’re going to track left to right slower than you do right to left. Hugo was the only one I saw compensating for that and he was the only one who would have hit the target.”

As Cosima watched, she went on explaining to them how to adjust for which way the target was moving, demonstrating with her own stick weapon. Cosima had to admit that she was impressed. Aurora was clever and she knew how to project authority. It was probably part of what had gotten her the position as team leader.

“Cosima are you ready?” she called. “Get your head down,” she added when Cosima peeked over the top of the shield. 

“OK, OK, sorry,” Cosima muttered breathlessly to herself. “Just embrace the burn.” Maybe after this she should suggest to Aurora that running around like this would be good exercise for the recruit’s too.

“Just a few more times,” Aurora told her, even though she couldn't have possibly heard her complaints. “Then we need to go back to camp.”

 _Finally._ She was grateful for what these people were doing for her and Delphine, and she really did want to help, but cardio had never been her strength and she was already exhausted and drenched in sweat.

Aurora told her to go, she ran. Two of them hit her and Aurora told her to go again. By the time they were finished, all five men had hit her at least once.

“There’s our lovely holey volunteer,” one of the men joked as Cosima made her way back to Aurora.

She gave them an overdramatic bow and they laughed. Cosima could tell they were all tired in more ways than just physically, but they hadn’t lost their sense of humor yet and they were all pretty friendly. She liked them, and It was difficult to imagine that soon they be shooting real people with real guns. It was even harder to imagine people with real guns shooting at _them._

“What’s next?” she asked Aurora as she stood beside her.

“I need to speak with Delphine,” Aurora answered.

Cosima crossed her arms. “Then you’re speaking to both of us,” she said firmly.

“I was planning to,” she told her calmly. “But this only concerns her.”

Cosima narrowed her eyes. Delphine might trust her but she wasn’t so sure. Aurora was being kind to them but she was also ruthlessly dedicated to her cause. Cosima didn’t want that anywhere near Delphine, especially with the psychic connection between them.

“What are you-”

But Aurora cut her off. “I’ll explain back at camp.” She turned to the men. “Keep practicing with each other. Hugo, you keep score first.”

The men nodded to show they understood and she set off walking back through the woods, Cosima trailing behind her.

“So,” Cosima said, keeping her voice down so the recruits wouldn’t overhear. “We never did finish our conversation about that book.”

Aurora was silent for a long time, staring ahead as she walked, and Cosima thought that she was going to ignore the question.

“I thought you may have forgotten,” she said at last.

“Is it that bad?” Cosima asked uneasily.

“I don’t think so,” Aurora answered, still staring ahead. “Delphine doesn’t know about it,” she added. “I hid it from both of you but maybe now that you’ve been here you’ll understand. I can’t keep it from Delphine for much longer anyway.” She glanced at Cosima who raised an eyebrow at her. “It’s information about the war.”

Cosima stopped in her tracks, a jolt running up her spine. “Aurora… you- you can’t….”

Aurora had turned around to face her and they stared at each other apprehensively. Aurora opened her mouth to speak but Cosima cut her off.

“You’re not supposed to have that information,” she told her firmly. “This war _ends,_ Aurora,” she added at the other woman’s stubborn expression. “It’s already set to end one way and you have no idea what will happen if you change something. What if what you change means we lose the war? What then Aurora? You can’t just come back and change history and expect it to end up the way you want it to be.”

“Says who?” Aurora challenged.

“Everyone!” Cosima huffed. “Time travel it’s… chaotic. It’s chaos theory, one little change builds up into bigger changes and then the whole world is a bit different. But this? Even if we still won the war -if we end up winning it at all- this would change everything. Me and my sisters might never be born, Delphine might never be born and even if one of us is we wont be the same people and it wont me the same world. You... you’re going to destroy us!”

Aurora shook her head. “You’re jumping to exaggerated conclusions….”

“I’m not!” Cosima objected. “If you change one battle then different people will live and die. The Nazis will change their strategy and then nothing you have will be usable anyway! Meanwhile, new people keep dying that weren’t supposed to, different people will be born. People who would have moved not moving, people who were supposed to meet not meeting…. The way we exist now is a product of the random actions of billions of people and it _can’t_ be the same if you do this. You’re going to sacrifice our world to change yours. And the worst part is… you can’t even know that what you get is going to be better.”

“People are dying,” Aurora said quietly. “How can I let that continue happening if I know I can stop it? And you’ve already changed something. You helped us train the recruits.”

“This is a lot bigger than running some training drills,” she objected. “You know the future. No one should have that kind of power, Aurora. I’m sorry but not even you. This is Project Leda all over again…no, it’s worse.”

“I’m not trying to hurt anyone,” she defended.

“Neither were the people who made me,” Cosima pointed out. “They wanted perfect human beings. They wanted to change something that they didn’t have the right to change and me and my sisters and hundreds more innocent people suffered for it.”

“Innocent people are suffering right now,” Aurora argued stubbornly. “And you can’t know what will happen if I do this.”

“And neither do you!” Cosima exclaimed. “Do you really believe that what I’m saying isn’t true?” Aurora said nothing, shifting uncomfortably. “You have no idea, do you? You’re going to gamble all of our lives on it and you don’t even know if I’m wrong.”                                     

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Aurora admitted. “I’m still thinking about it. That’s why I haven’t told anyone… we can discuss it later though. Right now I have work to do.”

“You want to put a pin in whether or not you’re gonna destroy my world?” Cosima asked incredulously.

“Yes,” she answered evenly. “While I try to save mine.”

They stared each other down but the other woman was a concrete wall. Aurora was stronger than her, Cosima realized. She was a trained spy, next to her Cosima was an angry wet paper bag. She definitely couldn't out-fight her and she didn't think she could even out-wit her in any way that would be useful. Even if she wanted to stop her, which she absolutely did, she probably couldn’t.

She sighed. At least Aurora was still undecided about it and she was right that she needed to get back to work. Even after only knowing her for a few days Cosima could tell how important she was to the resistance. Holding her back might do similar damage to what Cosima was trying to prevent by convincing her not to use the book. Although it certainly wouldn't be on such a catastrophic level.                                                      

Aurora had already started walking again and Cosima hurried behind her restlessly, wanting more than ever now to talk to Delphine. She needed her to help her make sense of all of this and she also knew that if either of them could convince Aurora not to do this it would be her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The part about shooting I just read off of google. I have no idea if it's true, I've never shot a gun.


	10. Chapter 10

Delphine was about to examine her own injury when she felt Aurora and Cosima approaching. Almost immediately she could tell that something was wrong.

_‘Cosima….’_

_‘She’s fine,’ Aurora answered quickly. ‘She’s angry with me but she’s fine. Everything is fine, don’t hurt yourself.’_

She blinked, realizing that she’d sprung to her feet. Her injured leg protested painfully under her weight but she’d been so wrapped up in her connection with Aurora she hadn’t noticed what she was doing.

_‘We need to be careful,’ Aurora warned, coming to the same realization that Delphine just had. ‘Sometimes it’s like I can feel more of you than of myself…’_

They let the unsettling thought rest between them but at this distance they couldn’t sever their connection even if they wanted to.

Delphine eased herself back down onto the log she’d been sitting on just as Cosima and Aurora came into view.

“So, are you gonna tell her what you did?” Cosima demanded, crossing her arms when they reached her.

“I don’t need to,” Aurora answered, and indeed already what had been discussed in the woods was piecing itself together inside Delphine’s head.

The information broke the equilibrium between them, causing a brief explosion of thoughts. It was two rivers crashing into each other, Delphine’s shock and Aurora’s defiance clashing in their heads but ultimately yielding to each other to flow as one turbulent body of water.

_‘I agree with Cosima,’ Delphine thought._

_‘I know,’ Aurora thought. ‘But I still don’t know what I’m going to do. I just want to do the right thing.’_

_‘I know.’_

It wasn’t agreeing to disagree, this was too vital for that, but they understood each other too well for anger. Delphine couldn’t convince Aurora to abandon the idea altogether and Aurora wasn’t able to convince Delphine that it would be safe but they’d skipped to the end of the argument and now they were just stuck pulling in opposite directions. It made Delphine’s head hurt a little.

“Hey.” Delphine jumped at Cosima’s hand on her shoulder and realized she’d sat down beside her. “Are you spacing out… oh wait, were you two talking just now?”

“That’s not what I’d call it,” Aurora said but Cosima wasn’t looking at her.

“I’m sorry, it’s difficult to control,” Delphine told her. She took Cosima’s hand, glad she was back, and for a moment her emotions were all her own again. “I don’t like it either… but I can’t convince her that it’s wrong.”

She and Aurora exchanged an anxious glance, unhappy at their inability to resolve the conflict and Cosima huffed in frustration.

“Yeah, that makes two of us,” she muttered.

“I need your help,” Aurora said, not waiting for them to reopen the debate.

 Delphine knew she meant her specifically but she was speaking out loud for Cosima’s sake and to keep up appearances. She felt Cosima’s grip on her hand tighten, agitated or protective she didn’t know, although Aurora thought it was both.

“What do you need me to do?” she asked.

Aurora sat down on the other side of Delphine, giving her about a foot of distance more than Cosima had. “You’re a doctor,” she began, but her words were slower than her thoughts and Delphine understood what she wanted before she spoke. “We need supplies…”

“I can identify them…”

“… we’ll be right there with you…”

“…I don’t know if I can….”

“… I wouldn’t risk it if it wasn’t important…”

“Guys, slow down,” Cosima interrupted and they realized they’d been having half the conversation in their heads.

_‘If we’d done that in front of anyone else…’ Aurora thought uneasily._

_‘We’ll get better with practice,’ Delphine assured her._

“Risk what?” Cosima asked irritably. She glared at Aurora challengingly. “What do you want her to do?”

Delphine met Aurora's eyes.

_‘You’ll explain it better than I can,” she thought._

“We’re running low on medical supplies,” Aurora told Cosima. “But there’s a shipment coming in to Paris tomorrow morning-“

“What does that have to do with us?” Cosima interrupted impatiently. “Unless…” Her eyes widened as she put together what they’d been saying. “No.” She shook her head. “No way.”

“It’s not up to you,” Aurora reminded her.

“And you want to do this? You really want to, not just because she’s in your head?” she demanded, turning to Delphine. “Can you even walk that far? And what about going home?”

Delphine stared back at her helplessly, not knowing what to say. It still felt like Cosima was only hearing half the story. Of course neither of them  _wanted_ this. 

“I’ll still take you out into the woods tonight to look for René again,” Aurora promised. “But if he’s not here, I need to get you to St. Lynette and that’s going to take time.”  

“So, what, we have to risk our lives while we’re here?” Cosima snapped. “Pay our dues?”

“Yes, I expect you to do your part while you’re here,” Aurora answered patronizingly. Delphine knew she didn't mean it that way, but Cosima's eyes flared with anger. 

“We didn’t ask to come here,” she hissed.

Delphine felt Aurora’s anger flare up but she kept her expression even. “None of us asked to be here either,” she scolded. "We all have lives, just like you." 

“Yeah, I know that,” Cosima said wearily. She closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead. “I’m sorry, OK? I just...” She looked up at Delphine, her eyes bright, and suddenly her voice was quiet. “You’re not a soldier.”

_‘She’s scared for you,’ Aurora thought. ‘And she’s right to be, but we need this badly and I promise I’ll protect you.’_

Aurora was torn, Delphine realized. She wanted what was best for her team, because of her dedication to ending the war and because she loved them, but she loved Delphine too and she hated what she was asking her to do. Cosima, although she did care about what happened to the men in the camp, had no such conflict when it came to her heart. She stared at her now with round pleading eyes, gripping her hand as if she could keep her from going if she only held on tight enough. They were both asking her to chose something different but in truth what they actually  _wanted_ was the same. 

In the end though, Aurora was right. This was Delphine’s decision and not theirs’. They could fight all they wanted with each other but her choice was still her own and as much she wanted to just take Cosima and go home, that may not be an option tonight.

“If we have to stay, then I want to help,” Delphine told them.

“Delphine…”

She heard the pain in Cosima’s voice but even knowing about the connection between them Cosima didn’t understand that Delphine loved Aurora too. Enough to do this for her despite the danger.

_‘Promise me that whatever happens you’ll get Cosima home,’ she thought._

_‘Nothing is going to happen to you,’ Aurora thought sharply but they both knew she couldn’t guarantee that._

_‘You’ll take care of Cosima though, if it does? You’ll get her home?’_

Aurora’s misery cut like thorns, but her dedication to her fight was unwavering even for Delphine. 

_‘Of course, I will,’ she swore. ‘But I’ll take care of you first so it doesn’t come to that.’_

“You’re really gonna do this,” Cosima said numbly. She’d let go of Delphine’s hand, her expression clouded. “Just because she asked you to.”

“No,” she said softly. She took Cosima’s face between her palms, stroking her cheeks with her thumbs, but Cosima wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Listen to me, we’re going to try to get home tonight.”

“But if we don’t…” she mumbled.

“If we don’t, and I can help these people then I want to do it.” Still Cosima wouldn’t look at her. She let her hands fall to her shoulders, giving them a squeeze. “They’re suffering, Cosima. You don’t understand, I can feel what Aurora is feeling and I know how much pain there is here. I am doing this because I know why Aurora is asking me to. I started my degree in immunology because I wanted to help people and that is the same reason she became an allied agent. This war is a disease.” Cosima opened her mouth to speak but Delphine wasn’t finished. “I know we can’t change it. Please believe me, I know how that it would be wrong to use what we know about the future to do that. But that isn’t what I’m doing and it’s just one team. It’s Aurora’s team and she’s… she’s…”

But there were no words that truly described what they were to each other. Nothing like this had ever happened before. 

“She’s a part of you,” Cosima finished, understanding dawning on her face. She looked up, searching Delphine's face. “But… this is your decision isn’t it, Delphine? Not hers?”

_‘I won’t make you do this,’ Aurora thought._

“I want to do this,” she promised both of them.

Cosima’s eyes were still bright but she leaned forward, pressing her forehead into Delphine’s shoulder. “I hate this stupid decade,” she muttered and they all knew that that was as close to her acceptance of this plan as they were going to get.

Delphine wrapped her arms around Cosima and closed her eyes, her connection to Aurora eclipsed for a moment by her connection with her. “You’re a part of me too, my love,” she whispered to her, wishing she could open her mind to her too and show her just how true that was. “Don’t be afraid, I haven’t forgotten that.”

“How can I not be afraid?” Cosima mumbled, sitting up. She turned to Aurora, lifting her chin. “I want to come with you.”

_‘No,’ Delphine thought instantly. ‘This isn’t her fight, I can’t let her get hurt for me.’_

_‘Don’t you think you’re being a little hypocritical?’ Aurora thought._

But already she was shaking her head. “You can’t,” she told her firmly. “There are too many reasons why it would be a bad idea. Your hair would draw attention to us and even if we hid it you aren’t trained in combat and you have no skills that Delphine doesn’t give us already. I’m sorry, but you’d just be another liability that we can't afford.”

“Yeah, I’m not useful,” Cosima translated flatly.

“Even if you came with us you wouldn’t be able to protect her,” Aurora pointed out and Delphine knew that she meant that. “It’s safer for all of us if you stay here.”

Cosima shut her eyes, grimacing as if she were in physical pain. When at last she opened them again, she looked up at Delphine stoically. “It’s your life.” She turned her hand over between her palms, weaving their fingers together. “Whatever you chose, I’m on your side.” 

Delphine shot her a grateful smile and she smiled back unhappily.

“I’m going to help Aurora,” she decided.

///

They didn’t find René that night. The three of them searched for him in the woods for hours, going back to the spot they’d found him and combing the area around it but there was no sign of him.  

“He’s probably tethered to St. Lynette,” Delphine concluded wearily.

They’d let her sleep for a few hours before night had fallen but Cosima could tell that her injury was still bothering her. Even with the stick she used to support herself she wore out easily and had to take frequent rests.

She stopped beside her, gently stroking her arm. “You OK?” she whispered.

Delphine placed a hand over hers, giving it a squeeze. “I’m fine,” she whispered back.  

“I don’t want to be out here for too long,” Aurora told them. “I’m pretty sure the location of our camp is safe but you’re not the only one who’s seen German soldiers out here, Delphine. We should get back.”

“How are we supposed to get to St. Lynette?” Cosima asked unhappily. “It’s, like, three hundred miles away.”

“We’ll have to take the train.” She’d expected Aurora to be relieved that Delphine could complete the mission now, but she sounded just as dejected as Cosima felt. “It may take a day and half to go there and back… once we manage to get tickets…”

“You can get tickets though right?”  Cosima worried.

“I’m going to do everything in my power to get you home,” Aurora promised. “But we need to go and we can’t discuss this out here.”

That was it then, they weren’t going home tonight and in a few hours Aurora was going to take Delphine out into Nazi occupied France to steal from the German army. Cosima's stomach churned and, feet like stones, she wordlessly helped Delphine back through the woods.

They returned to camp empty handed and Aurora told them to try to get some rest before Delphine had to leave. When she left to go gather up what they would need for the trip, Cosima took Delphine’s hand and led her towards the trees.

“Cosima what-“ Delphine began, confused.

“I just want some privacy for a minute,” Cosima answered and they both fell silent until they were hidden behind wide trunks.

As soon as she knew they were alone, Cosima turned to Delphine and kissed her for the first time in days. Delphine responded instantly, wrapping her arms around her neck, and when she kissed her back Cosima felt it all the way down to her stomach. They sank into each other and her shoulders relaxed as if they’d been cut from strings but all too quickly it was over and she pushed her forehead against Delphine’s, not ready to speak and needing the closeness to her.

“Cosima…” Delphine whispered. "...I'm sor-"

“Don’t.” She let out a shaky breath, struggling to accept what was about to happen. “Don't apologize...Just… just one more minute.”

Delphine held her cheeks and she kept her eyes closed, drinking her in and fighting the impulse to argue with her. She needed to let her do this, however much it hurt to let her go. This was Delphine’s decision and she didn’t want to send her off feeling guilty or in a fight. She just wanted something that both of them could hold onto until she got back.

“I can do this,” Delphine whispered and Cosima wasn’t sure which one of them she was trying to convince.

She kissed her again, desperately this time, begging her to come back without actually saying it because she wasn’t strong enough to put it into words and make the danger real.

“You can do this,” she echoed back. “Then we can go home.”

Delphine pulled her against her, holding her tightly and Cosima could tell how scared she was but she was being so brave and as terrified as Cosima was too, she was proud of her.

They held each other for a long time before Cosima forced herself to pull away. “You should get some rest,” she told her gently.

Together they found the little tent that they shared with Aurora, who barely seemed to sleep anyway. The men in the camp had some older ideas of chivalry and though Delphine had said they didn’t really treat Aurora any differently, they’d also come to an unspoken decision that Cosima and Delphine needed to be treated like… well ladies she guessed. It would have almost been funny if all of this hadn’t left Cosima feeling so sick.

Neither of them really slept. They tried, but Delphine must have been too nervous to fall asleep and Cosima was too busy battling against herself.

She didn’t want her to go. They weren’t even supposed to be here and even though she knew why Delphine was doing this it still didn’t seem fair. If she were being honest with herself, Cosima was angry at her for making the decision to help and she wondered if that made her selfish. How often had Delphine stood by her decisions to protect her sisters? She’d left Cosima alone on an island with a cult of murderers in order to work towards all of their freedom. How could she ask her to turn her back on Aurora when Delphine had been willing to sacrifice so much for her own strange family? How could she resent Aurora this much when Delphine still loved every single one of her sisters?

In her head, the answer was simple; she needed to let Delphine do this. That was the right thing to do, but her heart wouldn’t listen to reason and she was struggling to keep herself from stopping her.

 _This isn’t our fight. We’re not even supposed to be here and she could die. What if I lose her forever just because Aurora thought she could be useful?_  

Would Delphine call off her part in this mission if she asked her to? If she begged her? If she just gave up on self control and let herself break down?

The words were on the tip of her tongue but she grit her teeth and stared up at the blurry pole holding the ceiling of the tent instead of letting them loose. After a minute of struggling not to, she turned her head to look at Delphine.

She was close enough to be in focus, not asleep but something close to peaceful looking none-the-less, her beautiful face tilted towards Cosima. It felt like she’d always known that face, the way her chest stirred when she looked at Delphine seemed like such an integral part of her that it was as if she’d always loved her. Her arms were safety and her heart was home. All she wanted was to be allowed to keep what they had for the rest of their lives.

Traitorous thoughts of sabotage ran through her head but she ignored them and tried to focus instead on her love for her. She tried to be proud of her for being brave instead of angry at her for it. Eventually she settled for being both at the same time and gave up on sleep completely to watch her still expression and listen to her soft breathing until Aurora came to take her away.


	11. Chapter 11

The sun still hadn’t risen yet but the sky was turning milky blue between the trees and it was getting easier for Aurora to see the trail in front of her.

She pushed Delphine through the woods in a wheelbarrow, Alfred walking quietly close by. He was the one she trusted the most to help her keep Delphine safe, something she was keen on doing whether or not Cosima believed that. She still remembered the way she’d looked at her when she’d come to take Delphine away and she was pretty sure the other woman hated her. Delphine didn’t think so, but she also didn’t want her to and Aurora thought that the second thing might be directly influencing the first.

“I know it it’s not very dignified,” she told Delphine apologetically. “But I don’t want you to put too much strain on your leg unless you have to, and it’s a bit of a hike to the road.”

“Oh, well,” Delphine chuckled. “When I was a child my father would let me pretend it was a carriage. So, to me it's very dignified.”

She smiled at that. Delphine couldn’t see it from the angle she was at but Aurora knew that she felt it.

“Your adopted father,” Alfred guessed beside them. “I don’t mean that disrespectfully,” he added when Delphine turned her head towards him. “I’m just curious how you ended up in France.”

_‘That’s a difficult question,’ Delphine thought. ‘What do I tell him?’_

_‘You can say we were both adopted,’ she suggested. ‘It may make more sense.’_

_‘And what is he going to tell your parents if he meets them?’_

Aurora was taken aback. _‘Why would he meet them?’_

_‘You want him to,’ Delphine thought._

She found herself blushing uncomfortably and was glad that Alfred’s attention was on Delphine. Of course she’d know how she felt about Alfred. There were no secrets between them. 

_‘That’s complicated,’ she told her._

_‘You’re afraid,’ Delphine realized._

_‘We should answer his question,’ Aurora reminded her evasively._

“I’m sorry,” Alfred said, misinterpreting Delphine’s silence. “It’s none of my business.”

Delphine shook her head. “No, it’s fine. My mother was staying with family in Canada during the war,” she improvised. “My father was a soldier but they didn’t know how much longer the war would go on. They wanted a family and he told her she should start one in Canada. So she adopted me and when the war ended, we went home.”

_‘It’s not the worst lie I’ve ever heard,’ Aurora teased. ‘Have you ever considered undercover work?’_

_‘I have plenty of experience pretending to be someone I’m not,’ Delphine reminded her ‘I only hope that one day you won’t need to either.’_

_‘If I really am you, then someday I won’t,’ she reasoned._

_‘You deserve freedom in this life too.’_

Aurora wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It was strange, to have her heart so visible even if she knew that Delphine would never use anything she knew about her to hurt her. In truth, it was the fact that she cared so much that was the most disarming. Delphine saw everything that Aurora was, even the parts of her that she thought made her broken, and she forgave her for them. She really believed that she deserved happiness.

“France is a beautiful country,” Alfred commented kindly.

“And thanks to brave people like you, someday it will be ours again,” Delphine replied smoothly.

She really did know how to commit to a role. Although, Aurora knew that it wasn’t entirely a lie. People in Delphine’s time still remembered what had happened in Aurora’s, even if no one would know who she and Alfred were.

“Let’s hope so,” Alfred answered, smiling optimistically.

_‘He’s a sweet man,’ Delphine commented. ‘And brave too. I can see why you like him so much.’_

Aurora stole a longing glance at Alfred, wishing it were that simple. Delphine understood immediately.

_‘I’m sorry. I know how much it hurts to let someone like that go,’ she sympathized._

Aurora knew she was thinking of Cosima and the sacrifices she’d made to keep her and her sisters safe. Cosima hadn’t understood her then. Maybe Alfred wouldn’t understand Aurora now, but they’d both needed to set their feelings aside to do what needed to be done. Sometimes it seemed like Aurora was going to give all of herself to this war, even if she survived it.

_‘This war will end, Aurora,’ Delphine thought soothingly. ‘Just like ours did.’_

_‘Everything I do is to end this war,’ Aurora told her. ‘That’s more important than I am.’_

_‘I thought so too. I was willing to give up all of myself to help Cosima and her sisters,’ Delphine thought. ‘It was my choice to make that sacrifice just like this is yours and I know both of us still believe it would be worth losing ourselves for. But I survived it and I hope more than anything that you do too. You’re important to me, Aurora,’ she insisted when she felt Aurora’s doubt. ‘Your life matters too and you’re allowed to hope for a future for yourself as well.’_

_‘I used to hope for a future with René .’_

She took a deep breath, quietly so that Alfred wouldn’t hear from where he was walking a few paces ahead of them. It was the first time she’d admitted that to anyone and the finality of the past tense hit her like a blow to the stomach.

Delphine, sensing her pain, twisted herself around to place her hand over where Aurora was holding onto the handle of the wheelbarrow. Their eyes met, Delphine’s soft with sympathy and neither of them needed to speak or even give words to their thoughts. There was nothing either of them could do about Aurora’s misery, they both knew it, and Delphine didn’t try to pretend that anything she could say would make it right. She was in her head, not sad or hopeful but simply _there,_ holding her up until the pain passed.

_////_

The sun was rising between the trees, its warm rays painting the forest in orange and gold as birds sang in chorus to greet the dawn but to Cosima it was hollow and cold. She sat beneath a tall oak, the one she’d kissed Delphine under last night, staring numbly at a dirty patch of leaves.

It had barely been an hour but already the waiting was festering in her belly. She didn’t want to eat, she didn’t want to drink, she didn’t want to get up and offer to help. She didn’t want to move even though she knew that sitting still only made it easier for her sense of dread to grow until it strangled her.

“Hey, there you are.” She heard one of the men call out in friendly greeting but even as he took a seat beside her she didn’t look up.

He wore thick black glasses and he wasn’t French like the others. He sounded American, or maybe Canadian. It didn’t really matter though because whoever it was she didn’t want to talk to him.

“Hey,” she answered flatly. Her throat was raw and stiff.

“You hungry?”

 She glanced at him to see that he was holding out a metal cup of what might have been porridge before she went back to her leaves.

“No,” she mumbled. “… thanks.”

The man started eating, she heard the spoon scraping against the cup and they sat together for a few minutes, Cosima wondering why he didn’t just leave her alone, until he spoke again.

“Your friend is really brave,” he told her kindly.

 “Yeah, I knew that already,” she said quietly. She wasn’t sure why she said what she said next. Maybe it was easier to be honest with a stranger. Maybe she just needed to hear herself admit out loud how she really felt. “Honestly, right now I kind of hate that about her.”

He let her stew over the comment while he ate another spoonful of what was definitely porridge. There was more she could say. She could tell him that it felt like Aurora was taking Delphine away from her, about how bitter she’d grown towards the connection between them and what it drove Delphine to do. She could tell him that she’d made herself let Delphine go because she was ashamed of her own selfishness but that now she regretted not doing more to convince her to stay.

 “How did you meet her?” he asked, breaking her out of her head.

“I…” Cosima hesitated, thinking of the story she’d agreed on with Delphine. That they’d met in America and had been visiting Delphine’s home in France when the war started. It was close enough to the truth, there was no reason not to inch a little closer. “She saved my life,” she told him. “I was sick and she… she never gave up on me.”

“My team saved my life once,” he told her. He laughed. “Well, probably more than once. But one time we had an assignment go wrong and I was hurt pretty badly and they carried me to someone who could help.”

Cosima closed her eyes, thinking of Delphine and assignments going wrong and wishing more than ever that he’d just go away.

“We look out for each other,” he pressed. “And Aurora… I think she’s the strongest of all of us. If anyone can keep your friend safe it’s her.”

Except it was her fault she was out there in the first place. Her and the hold she had over Delphine.

“None of this should even be happening,” Cosima muttered.

“Yeah. It shouldn’t,” he agreed, misinterpreting what she’d said. “I should be applying to colleges right now but instead I’m here in the woods training civilians with sticks because we don’t have real guns and waiting for our next orders.”

Cosima turned to him, seeing for the first time how young he was. “How old are you?” she asked.

“I’ll be twenty next month,” he answered.

 _He’s just a kid._ He wasn’t though, not really. She could see it in his face that he’d aged far beyond his years and she could hear in his voice that he’d seen more terrible things than most people did in a lifetime.

She shook her head. “Your parents…”

“They think I’m working at a desk in Ottawa,” he explained. He shrugged. “It makes writing letters a bit tricky but I can’t imagine writing to my mom that I’ve been shot at. Where are yours?” he added.

“They live on a houseboat,” she told him. “They’re safe but they don’t know where I am either.”

“A houseboat?” he repeated, grinning at that. “Really?”

“Yeah.” She surprised herself with a short laugh. “Yeah, they’re pretty cool.”

He held out his hand. “I’m Harry by the way.”

She took it, smiling. “Cosima.”

“I know, everyone’s talking about you,” he informed, smirking. “You and Delphine. I can’t believe Aurora has a twin sister and she never knew.”

“It’s pretty weird,” Cosima agreed with some amusement.

Harry stood up, stretching his arms. “I need to go collect some sticks we can use for the fire instead of training,” he joked. “Do you want to come? It might help to keep yourself busy. I know it does for me.”

Cosima looked up at him, truly understanding for the first time what Delphine had meant when she’d said this war was disease. At Harry’s age, she’d been thinking about adventure and cute girls. She’d been allowed to _open_ those acceptance letters. She’d been allowed to go. Would Harry even be allowed to go home someday?

“Sure,” she agreed, getting to her feet. “And, uh, thanks. For listening.”

Harry smiled at her and they made their way across the leaves. Each step she took loosened the knot in her stomach but she knew that nothing anyone could do or say would ease the worry that hummed in her chest like an electric current. All she could do was wait.

////

The sun had risen by the time they reached the road but it was still golden and new and the air was quiet.

Aurora sat with Delphine and Alfred just out of view, waiting for the truck carrying supplies to pass by. They had already knocked a tree onto the path of oncoming traffic which would hopefully give them enough time to get into the truck and grab as many supplies and medical equipment as they could carry in their backpacks and the wheelbarrow.

“You have to be as quick as possible,” Aurora reminded Delphine, holding out the canteen of water they’d been passing between them. “If we do this right, they won’t know they’re missing anything until they reach Paris.”

But Delphine was eyeing the revolver that Alfred was loading with a faraway expression on her face and Aurora could sense that she was distracted.

“It’s just a precaution,” she assured her.

“Will they have guns too?” Delphine asked quietly, taking the canteen but not drinking from it.

“Probably,” Alfred answered honestly.

She closed her eyes, taking a long breath. Aurora placed a hand on her shoulder.

_‘I’ll be right there with you,’ she promised._

Delphine’s fear was palpable but so was her resolve and Aurora had faith that the second was stronger. She put her hand over Aurora’s giving it a squeeze.

_‘I just need a minute.’_

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” Alfred asked Aurora. “Privately?”

_‘He thinks I’m going to mess this up,’ Delphine worried._

_‘No he doesn’t,’ Aurora objected._

She nodded at Alfred, getting up to follow him a short distance away even though both she and Delphine knew that nothing he said to her could really be private.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Alfred told her.

_‘I told you,’ Delphine thought._

“She’s just nervous,” Aurora said defensively. “She can handle this.”

_‘This isn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever done,’ Delphine added. ‘I’m scared but I can handle it. I won’t let you down.’_

Aurora had to supress a smug grin. She almost wished Alfred could hear Delphine in her head. Then he’d know that she was so much stronger than he imagined.

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Alfred answered. He glanced at Delphine, who pretended not to be paying attention to their conversation and lowered his voice. “You’re too close to her.”

She narrowed her eyes, anger flaring in her chest. “You still don’t trust my judgement, do you?”

“She’s your sister,” he insisted defensively. “That makes this complicated. I thought that maybe being separated for so long would make this easier but you’re still too protective of her.”

“You think I can’t separate my personal feelings from what we need to do?” she asked accusingly. “Alfred, if I were letting my emotions guide my judgement she wouldn’t be here. I hate that she’s out here with us but we need her so I made a decision and so did she. Don’t question our resolve now.”

_‘Aurora...’_

She felt Delphine’s jolt of panic in the same moment that Alfred looked passed her shoulder and she knew that the truck was coming before she turned around and saw it.

_‘Just follow my lead,’ she instructed. ‘You’ll be OK.’_

Already though Delphine had composed herself and the three of them moved swiftly and silently deeper into the cover of the trees to wait for their trap to be sprung.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So according to her wiki, Aurora is 25 in 1942 so she'd have been born in 1917, very close to the end of the first world war. It's also kinda weird but in this fic Delphine would be 33 so she's 8 years older than Aurora but they pass as twins. Looking good guys?


	12. Chapter 12

The truck came to a halt in front of the tree and the three of them watched from the bushes with baited breath as two men, grumbling to each other in German, stepped out onto the road.

Alfred kept watch from the trees and, when their attention was on the obstacle, he signaled to Aurora and Delphine who hurried behind the truck with the wheelbarrow.

_‘Watch Alfred for the signal,’ Aurora instructed. ‘I’m going to pick the lock.’_

The men were trying to move the tree, Delphine could hear them dragging it across the dirt from where she and Aurora hid behind the truck and she did her best to keep herself from panicking. Aurora trusted Alfred and she trusted Aurora, that was enough to keep her focused on her own part of the plan. She took a few deep breaths, clearing her head.

_‘It’s open. Get in quickly,’ Aurora told her. ‘I’ll watch Alfred and I’ll tell you when we need to move. Be as quiet as you can and when I say we need to go, you leave. Understand?’_

_'Yes.'_

They switched places like dancers, easily in sync with each other, and Delphine stepped quietly inside the vehicle. She had a list in her head of the things they’d need most and the first thing she took was antibiotics, then she looked for syringes and transfusion pumps, gauze, morphine, tools for simpler procedures she thought Aurora and the others could do in the field.

It was difficult to work quickly and not make noise, her hands were sweating and the truck felt too cramped but she grit her teeth and held in the pulsing sense of dread in her stomach. Only Aurora could have known how terrified she really was from the way she kept herself composed and after she’d gotten used to carefully placing the boxes into the wheelbarrow her motions became as automatic as moving along a set of tracks. In less than two minutes, it was already full and she was stuffing the backpack with whatever she could find.

_‘That’s the signal,’ Aurora thought._

_‘Go on, I’m coming,’ Delphine answered, grabbing one last boxful of antibiotics. ‘Get the supplies out of here.’_

_‘OK, but make sure you close the door behind you,’ Aurora answered, her focus on the mission winning out over her protectiveness. ‘And please hurry.’_

She sensed Aurora’s urgency as she started pushing the wheelbarrow back into the trees and scrambled to get out of the truck as quietly as she could. In her haste to shut the door silently behind her, her sleeve caught in it and the yank on her arm almost sent the box tumbling out of her hands. Turning around, she realized she’d closed it over her sleeve and she tried to open it again but Aurora had set it up so it would lock behind them and it wouldn’t budge.

_‘I’m stuck.’_

_‘What?!’_

Aurora’s horror collided with her own fear until it was nearly impossible to tell who was feeling what. Delphine tugged at her shirt, hoping it would tear but the material was strong and the men were already coming back. One of them spotted her and started yelling at her in German. She felt Aurora bolt forward but Alfred was holding her back and she quickly regained control of herself as the two of them split off into separate people again. Her fear for Delphine was still rolling off of her in waves, and Delphine's terror was rolling right back, but all three of them knew that she and Alfred needed to stay hidden.

_‘Act dumb,’ Aurora instructed desperately. ‘The less they think you know the better.’_

_‘Stay hidden,’ Delphine thought back firmly, worried that they'd lose control again._

One of the men shouted at her in German and Delphine flinched when she saw him pull out a revolver.

He yelled again, rising it to point at her chest. She couldn't understand him but Aurora could and she didn't need her translation to recognize the threat. Not knowing what else to do, she dropped the box and rose her free hand into the air, shouting back in French and letting herself look as terrified as she felt.

“What are you doing?” the man demanded in French.

“P-please,” Delphine squeaked, not needing to fake her terror. “M-my mother’s not… she’s… she’s very sick… please.’

_‘Good,’ Aurora thought, her presence inside of Delphine’s head was so strong now that she could have been standing right next to her. ‘You’re doing well, just stay calm. I’m right here, OK?’_

_‘OK,’ Delphine thought, grasping onto her._

“Why don’t you bring her to the hospital?” the man demanded. “Instead of stealing from us?”

_‘Rations,’ Aurora supplied. ‘The Germans keep everything for themselves.’_

“There isn’t enough medicine to help her,” Delphine told him, letting herself sound just a bit defiant. “They’ll let her die.”

“Did you do this to the tree?” he barked. “Did you know we were coming?”

_‘No,’ Aurora told her urgently. ‘They cannot know you had that information. They’ll want to know where it came from…’_

She cut herself off, trying to hide the next thought but they were both having trouble keeping in control of themselves and, anyway, it was obvious. They’d take her and then they’d torture her until she broke. Or Alfred would shoot her before they could.

“N-no… I was on my way to the hospital to see her…” she pleaded. “I just saw the truck had stopped and I thought of my mother.”

The man looked disgusted. “You didn’t think to help us instead? We take care of your mother and this is how you repay us?”

“I’m sorry,” Delphine said quickly. “I was stupid. I won’t make this mistake again…”

“You won’t,” the man said coldly.

He rose the gun and she shut her eyes, remembering how much it hurt when a metal bullet exploded through flesh. Her whole body was shaking and she held on tightly to Aurora who flowed through her like a second soul. Their fear drew them together and she had wrapped her consciousness around Delphine as if she could shield with that.

_‘Get Cosima home,’ Delphine thought, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘Tell her I’m sorry…’_

There was a bang and she yelped, hugging her stomach. Then there was another one and she realized that she hadn’t been hit.

Suddenly Aurora was beside her, holding her arms and asking her if she was OK.

“I’m sorry,” she said shakily. “I should have made sure I was clear of the door… I s-should have said something else…”

_‘They almost shot me. I couldn’t stop him… I was so scared… I couldn’t…’_

 Her thoughts jumble together incoherently until Aurora wrapped her own around them again, sending her the message over and over again that she was safe now.

“It’s OK,” Aurora assured her out loud, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “You did really well. That man was a monster, he was going to shoot you no matter what you said.” She pulled a knife off of her belt and if it were anyone else Delphine would have jumped but she knew her intentions even before she started to cut at her sleeve. “Sometimes the plan changes.”

That wasn’t true. Aurora and Alfred weren’t supposed to kill those men, it meant that people would be looking for them sooner and it meant that they’d be a lot angrier than they’d be if it had only been some stolen supplies.

_‘You weren’t supposed to save me,’ Delphine thought._

_‘We don’t leave each other behind,’ Aurora objected. ‘Those men weren’t important enough to the Reich for there to be severe repercussions from the Nazis and we can still make it back without being detected. The medical supplies are useful enough that it was worth it anyway. Besides I wasn’t going to let you die just to keep the mission easy.’_

_‘This is easy?’ Delphine joked weakly._

Aurora smiled, cutting through the last piece of fabric.

“We need to go,” Alfred urged as soon as she was free. He’d already picked up Delphine’s last box and was motioning towards the woods. “Go and hide with the supplies, we’ll move the truck and the bodies.”

Delphine silently obeyed, her stomach twisting with guilt. Whatever Aurora said, she knew that if she’d just made sure to get her arm clear before she’d closed the door, they’d on their way back already and no one would have had to shoot anyone. 

////

“Can I ask you something?” Alfred asked carefully as he and Aurora piled dirt and leaves over the men’s bodies.

“No, I’m not going to bring her out again,” Aurora answered pre-emptively, not looking up from what she was doing.

“That wasn’t my question,” he told her. “But I think that’s for the best. She makes things too complicated.”

Delphine was sitting down somewhere in the trees, hidden and keeping watch for them, and Aurora couldn’t tell if the guilt she was feeling was hers or her own. He probably thought this was about an inability for her to keep her emotions in check but it was so much more than that. Feeling Delphine’s fear wasn’t the same as being afraid herself or even the same as being afraid for her although she’d certainly been both. It was like being fused together, so closely she couldn’t tell where she ended and Delphine began and she couldn’t think when she was like that. The only thing that had ever rivaled it was Delphine’s love for Cosima but that had never been a problem because in Aurora it manifested itself as protectiveness and warmth for the difficult woman. All it meant was that she cared deeply for Cosima, which wasn't dangerous because Cosima herself was the opposite of threatening. 

This though, this was dangerous and neither of them had seen it coming. But she couldn’t tell Alfred any of that so she let him believe she’d just been scared for her sister.

“What was your question?” she asked resignedly.

“It’s more of an observation,” he said.

She wiped her hands on her pants, trying to brush the dirt off and hide her unease at this conversation. “OK…”

“You never have to tell her anything,” he said. “She does things without you asking her to or having to explain them.”

“Maybe she’s just smarter than you think,” Aurora answered evasively. _And I should have remembered how observant you are._

“Is that really all it is?” he asked skeptically. “Sometimes… Just now when you cut her lose… it was like the two of you were having a conversation. You were smiling like she’d said something funny, but no one said anything.”

Aurora laughed dismissively. “What are you saying Alfred? That we have some kind of telepathic connection?”

“No,” he said slowly. “But you do seem to have a connection.”

Aurora shrugged. “We do have a connection. She’s my twin.”

“Are you going to miss her?”

The question caught her off guard and she blinked at him, a lump rising in her throat. She hadn’t really thought too much about it, but when they finally did make it to St. Lynette they were going have to say goodbye to each other forever. There weren’t any letters that could reach her from 2018. The only way the _might_ meet again would be if Aurora lived long enough for Delphine to be born, but she didn’t think it worked that way.

She nodded. “Yes. But she doesn’t belong here.”

_‘I’ll miss you too,’ Delphine thought, sensing her sorrow. ‘And I’ll never forget you. I don’t think we could ever really leave each other.’_

_‘But I won’t be able to talk to you,’ Aurora thought and neither of them knew what to do about that._

_‘I’ll look for you,’ Delphine promised._

_‘I’ll probably be dead,’ Aurora told her truthfully. ‘Please don’t cry,’ she added gently when she felt the tears burn behind Delphine’s eyes. ‘If you cry, I’m going to cry too. It’s OK. You can go home and see Annie again and marry Cosima if that’s what she wants. And you can be happy.’_

_‘I wish I could make sure you’ll be OK too,’ Delphine thought. ‘It’s not fair…’_

She was crying now and Aurora took a few deep breaths to keep herself form following suit as she and Alfred went to move the truck off the road. He’d let her have the silence without questioning it and she loved him for that and for so many other things. He cared about her and maybe it wasn’t enough but it was something to hold onto.

_‘Maybe I will get to live my life,’ she thought optimistically. ‘There could be an after. And... I don’t know what we are Delphine, but I can’t die if you’re alive. I want to see the other side of this but if I don’t at least I know a part of me can live in the light someday. You gave that to me. And you reminded me to have hope in this life too.’_

Delphine was quiet for a while, keeping watch and maybe trying to make up for feeling like she’d let Aurora down, but Aurora knew that what she’d told her had meant a lot to her and that Delphine hadn’t let her down at all. There were some things that they couldn’t change no matter how much they wanted to but at least they’d been allowed to know each other, however briefly, and she was grateful for that.

“It doesn’t make you weak,” Alfred said quietly, just as he was about to get into the truck. “Caring about people. I know you think that I was judging you for it, but I wasn’t. You just need to know that it’s there.”

_'We know it's there now,' she thought ominously and Delphine echoed her unease._

“I do,” she answered. 

He smiled at her reassuringly and she smiled back, realizing that he was letting it go because he trusted her and suddenly grateful that she’d been allowed to know him too. Then he got into the truck and she watched the road as he drove it out of sight.

///

By the time they reached the camp, Delphine was exhausted and sore but when she caught sight of Cosima her spirits lifted.

She’d been helping Harry stack firewood but the second she realized Delphine was back she was running towards her, enveloping her in a tight hug that nearly knocked her off her feet.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” she whispered happily.

“Cosima… ow…” she protested, half laughing even as she stumbled. “I missed you too.”

She pulled back, wincing sympathetically. “Shit… sorry. Does it hurt?”

“Only when it’s attached to me,” Delphine answered with a weak smile.

The joke made her chuckle but she still looked concerned. “You should sit down.” She went to grab her hand, tilting her head when she noticed where Aurora had cut away the fabric. “Hey, what happened to your sleeve?”

Delphine looked down at it, hesitating. “Um…”

“How did it go?” They both turned to see that Harry had followed Cosima to the returning party.

“We had a few unexpected problems,” Aurora answered seriously.

Out of the corner of her eye, Delphine saw Cosima frown at her but she kept her gaze on Aurora, grateful that she wasn’t going to be the one to explain it. Despite Aurora’s assurances it still felt like it was her fault. 

“We had to shoot the truck drivers,” Alfred added somberly and Delphine noticed that he used the world _we_ instead of _her,_ refusing to single Aurora out for the action. “We hid the truck and the bodies but someone will find it eventually.”

An uneasy silence settled over them and Delphine risked a glance at Cosima, wondering what she would think of all this, but she was staring at the ground.  

“Are we really upset that a few more Nazis are dead?” Harry asked, crossing his arms.

“It’ll draw unwanted attention to us,” Aurora explained and though she knew her frustration was not directed at her, Delphine flinched.

“OK,” Harry said, still not really seeming to mind. “Then why did you shoot them?”

_‘He’s getting so reckless,’ Aurora worried. ‘He doesn’t see how much of a problem this is.’_

“They caught Delphine with a box of supplies,” she answered. “They were going to kill her. I had no choice.”

_‘I’m so sorry,’ Delphine thought guiltily._

_‘This is my fault, not yours,’ Aurora reminded her. ‘I should never have asked you to come out there with me. I couldn’t… turn off… how scared you were. I can’t be objective when I can feel everything you feel. And that’s dangerous.’_

“It’s done now,” Alfred added. He and Aurora exchanged a look and Delphine knew that even if he didn’t entirely agree with what had just happened he wasn’t going to criticize her in front of the others. “We have what we needed and we didn’t lose anyone.”

"I'd rather them than you any day," Harry told Delphine and her mouth twitched into a half smile at him. 

“It wont happen again,” Aurora promised, still looking at Alfred who gave her a slight to show that he understood.

_‘What do we do about our connection though?’ Delphine asked. ‘I don’t want to put you in danger.’_

_‘I don’t know,’ Aurora admitted. ‘At least we’re getting better at keeping up two conversations at once. But I think Cosima is upset…’_

Alfred and Harry were already taking the supplies into camp but Cosima was staring reproachfully between Delphine and Aurora.

“They were going to kill you,” she repeated quietly. “Just like that…”

“I’m fine,” Delphine insisted.

“It wasn’t her fault,” Aurora added. “It was an accident. And I kept her safe.”

“You?” Cosima turned on her, eyes aflame. “You brought her out there in the first place,” she accused. “Weren’t you supposed to make sure she didn’t get caught?”

“Cosima, please don’t blame Aurora for this,” Delphine defended. “My sleeve was caught-“

“-No, you’re right,-“ _‘I shouldn’t have left you in there alone’_

“-I’m not a child-“ _‘it wasn’t your job to take care of me’_

 _‘But I promised I’d keep you safe’_ “-it won’t happen again-“

Cosima held out her hands. “Stop,” she grumbled. “Stop. Just… Jesus Christ Delphine, are you even thinking for yourself right now?”

“It’s not like that,” she objected.

“Then what is it?” Cosima demanded.

She glanced at Aurora and Cosima huffed. “Seriously?”

“I have to go,” Aurora told them. She turned to Cosima. “I made a mistake bringing her with me, but I didn’t make her do anything.”

Cosima crossed her arms. “Yeah, whatever.”

_‘I don’t know what to tell her,’ Aurora thought. ‘She doesn’t even understand why it was a mistake. I think she’s just angry that you almost got hurt.’_

_‘Go,’ Delphine told her. ‘It’s OK, I’ll talk to her.’_

_‘You really didn’t do anything wrong,’ she insisted. ‘You were very brave. I’m proud of you.’_

_‘And you were there when I needed you.’_

Aurora left her and Cosima and Delphine did her best to restrain the link between them so they could both focus on their own problems.

“Were you two talking just now?” Cosima asked warily.

“Yes,” Delphine answered honestly. “I was thanking her for saving me,” she added, wanting to highlight that point.

“Do you… uh… do that often?” she asked uneasily.

Delphine wasn’t going to lie to her. “Yes.”

Cosima sighed. “OK.” It sounded more defeated than accepting. “Let’s get you somewhere you can sit down.” She slid her arm under Delphine’s shoulder so she could put her weight on her as they walked into the camp.

It wasn’t the end of the conversation but she didn’t want to fight with her right now so Delphine let it go. Eventually she’d need Cosima to understand but right now she was content to let herself be looked after.

When they were alone inside of the tent, Delphine took her pants off and Cosima helped her change the bandages on her thigh, frowning at how swollen it was.

“Is it supposed to look like that?” she worried.

“It’s not infected,” Delphine told her, relieved. “Which is very good. But I think I might have aggravated it.”

“You shouldn’t have walked all that way in this condition,” she said under her breath.

Delphine closed her eyes, leaning her head back. It hurt enough that she really wished hadn’t needed to walk so far, but she still didn’t regret it and she was already feeling guilty enough with Cosima’s comments. She took in long breaths, trying to quell the pain that pulsed in time with her heartbeat, not having the leftover energy for a reply.

“Sorry,” Cosima sighed. “I shouldn’t pick on you while you’re like this.”

“Does that mean you’re going to pick on me later?” Delphine asked with dry amusement. Cosima lifted her leg to wrap fresh gauze around it, treating it gently as if it were made of glass, but the movement still sent a jolt up her thigh. “Ow, ow, ow…”

“Am I doing it right?” she asked, stopping.

Delphine nodded, her eyes still closed. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“OK.” Cosima gave her hand a squeeze before continuing with the gauze and Delphine bit down on her lip until she was finished. She heard her move around her and felt her sit down on her other side, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Did they hurt you?” she asked softly.

“No,” Delphine whispered. She leaned into Cosima, grateful for the temporary cease fire between them. “The didn’t touch me.” _But I was so scared._

Cosima let out a breath. “OK. OK then, uh, that’s good,” she mumbled distractedly. She shifted underneath her, getting to her feet when Delphine lifted her head off her shoulder, and she resisted the urge to reach up for her hand. “You should lie down for a bit,” she said quietly. “I’m… uh, I’m going to see if they need help with anything. Aurora wants us to be useful right?” Although she’d tried to disguise the bitterness of the last statement, Delphine could still hear it in her voice.

“OK,” Delphine agreed unhappily, realizing that she was leaving to get away from her.

 She felt Cosima’s hand brush the top of her head and when she looked up she was trying to smile at her. “I’m glad you’re OK.”

Her words were sincere but she was clearly still upset and Delphine nodded, trying and failing to smile back. Did she really hate Aurora that much? Why was she angry with Delphine for helping her? Did she think she’d lost sight of going home? That she was going to let them be trapped here forever? Did she feel like she'd abandoned her to help Aurora?

 Whatever Cosima thought, it was bad enough to drive her away and when she had gone Delphine lay on her back, uncertain if it was her leg or her heart that hurt more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've pretty much finished writing this, meaning that chapters should come out every two days now unless I decide to seriously edit a chapter. 
> 
> Also I don't know how accurate it is but this is what I pictured the medical truck to look like just based on a quick google search https://www.med-dept.com/images/amb_article/gmc.jpg Basically a bulky ambulance.


	13. Chapter 13

Cosima sat across from Harry, a short distance from the camp, swatting at bugs and tired of being outside but glad for the company.

“Can you hold this steady for me again?” Harry asked, keeping his hands on the top of the bottle until Cosima took over holding it up. “OK, good, don’t move it.”

“This isn’t gonna, like, blow up while I’m holding it or something?” she asked half jokingly.

“It needs the active ingredient to detonate,” Harry told her calmly. “It’s harmless like this, I just don’t want to spill anything and you have good hands for it.”

“I told you, I’m a scientist,” she reminded him good-naturedly. “I’m used to working with tiny things. Just not, uh, things that might explode. How many of these do we need?”

“I just want to be prepared,” Harry answered, pouring the liquid into the bottle. “Where’s Delphine?”

“She’s…” Cosima hesitated, unsure what Harry would think about their drama, but he’d been a good listener so far. “I’m kind of pissed at her I guess. But she’s in pain from the trip and I didn’t want to be a bitch while she was like that so I… I guess I decided to give her some space.”

“Don’t be too hard on her,” Harry said, lifting the bottle so he could see how much he’d put in. “I messed up my first mission too, you know. We were supposed to blow up this bridge and I dropped a whole bundle of wires into the river. It almost didn’t get blown.”

“It’s not that,” Cosima told him honestly. “I just don’t entirely trust Aurora. I’m sorry, I know she’s your friend,” she added quickly. “But we barely know her and she’s already asking us to put so much faith in her… and Delphine isn’t even questioning it. She just does whatever she says. It’s like she has her brainwashed or something. I’m glad you got the supplies. I’m just worried she’s gonna let Aurora steer her off a cliff.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Harry conceded as they moved onto the next bottle. “You don’t know us, right? And Aurora was asking her to put her life in her hands. Last one,” he added, nodding his head towards the bottle.

“OK,” Cosima agreed.

“And she may be my friend, but that doesn’t mean I always agree with her,” he went on, frowning. “Sometimes she treats me like I don’t know what I’m doing. Everyone does. Like I’m just some kid, but they’re not even that much older than me. Did you know Tom’s only 21? He’s just taller than me so he looks older.”

“It’s the glasses,” Cosima commented jokingly. “And I think we both have baby faces. Sometimes people still ask me if I’m old enough to drink.”

Harry smirked. “You do have a baby face.”

“Uh, we both do,” she protested.

“OK, I’ll give you the glasses,” he conceded, still smiling. After a moment though, he paused what he was doing and his face fell. “Do you think any of this is gonna matter?” he asked seriously.

Cosima looked at the line of bombs and shrugged. “Depends if you have to blow something up, I guess,” she answered.

“No, not that,” he said. “Sometimes it just feels like for every bad thing we stop, two more happen. I’m not scared,” he added quickly. “I’m not scared, I’m just…” He shrugged. "I don't know."

“Tired,” Cosima finished and he nodded.

That at least she understood. She still remembered how exhausted she’d been when she’d locked herself in the basement under the comic book shop. She remembered feeling like nothing she did was really going to matter because they were going to lose anyway. She’d been Sisyphus, labouring painfully just to get a stupid rock up a hill only to have it come tumbling back down to hurt her or the people she loved. It was still one of the lowest points of her life, but she’d been sent a ray of hope just when she’d needed it the most and it had made all the difference.

Suddenly she wanted to tell Harry everything. She wanted to tell him that they were going to win the war, that people would remember what he’d done even if no one would ever know his name. She wanted him to know that this was going to end and as much as she knew it would be wrong to give him that information, she was struggling with herself not to.

“It matters to me,” she settled on at last, finding a way to thank him without giving anything away. “Without you guys, I’d probably be dead by now. Look at me.” She said, gesturing to herself. “I can’t shoot, I don’t know French and even if I did I probably wouldn’t be able to hold my tongue long enough not to piss off the wrong person. I’m still alive because of you. And I bet a lot of other people are too.”

Harry smiled at her. “I am glad no one with a real gun has shot you yet,” he joked and she could tell he was still going to be waiting for the rock to tumble back down, but he did seem to appreciate what she’d said.

“Yeah, me too,” she agreed, smiling back. “And I really wish I’d taken French in high school.”

 Harry laughed. “I wish I’d paid more attention in that class.” He set the bottle aside and they got to their feet. “We should go help out with the training,” he decided and Cosima nodded in agreement, glad for something to do and someone to talk to. “Hey, have you ever read Frankenstein?”

///

“So, you really didn’t ask about the book?” Cosima prompted.

They were in the entrance of one of the bigger tents and she was helping Delphine organize the medical supplies they’d brought back, taking boxes out of the wheelbarrow so Delphine wouldn’t need to lift anything. She’d been able to rest for a couple of hours but she was still in a lot of pain whenever she put weight on her leg and on top of her own discomfort Aurora seemed to feel traces of her physical pain no matter how hard they tried to block their connection. She couldn’t afford to distract her if she was doing something important.

 It was a beautiful day outside, but the atmosphere between them remained uneasy. Even running more drills with the recruits hadn’t cooled Cosima off much. Not that she’d said anything yet, but she wore her emotions on her face and she’d been irritable and snappy since they’d started. Delphine wasn’t sure if she were angry at her or Aurora or both, but she was tired and her leg hurt so her patience was wearing thin.

“We’ve been a bit preoccupied,” she reminded her rigidly opening a box of syringes.

“I know that, but this is kind of important,” Cosima persisted.

Delphine fought the urge to make contact with Aurora. She was the one who needed convincing not Delphine who already agreed with Cosima. Not that Cosima was acting like it. But she couldn’t talk to Aurora now. They’d agreed to practice keeping their thoughts separate, at least until the end of the day. Aurora was busy and if they were going to spend any length of time in the same decade together they were going to need to learn not to distract each other.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked, sorting the syringes into the makeshift first aid kits they were putting together as Cosima retrieved another box from the wheelbarrow.

“You’re the one in her head,” Cosima pressed. “I dunno, like, use your connection to make her understand.”

“If Aurora were going to listen to me, she would have by now,” Delphine objected.

“Can’t she see what you’re thinking?” Cosima asked. “She made you listen to her,” she added under her breath.

“Because I already wanted to go,” Delphine said impatiently.

“Are you sure about that?” Cosima shot back sourly.

Huffing in frustration, Delphine sprung to her feet to take the box from Cosima but her bad leg had gone stiff while she was sitting and as she moved a bolt of pain shot up into her thigh. She gasped, quickly shifting her weight to her other leg but she was off balance and there were spots dancing in front of her eyes.

Cosima rushed forward to catch her, quickly setting down the box she’d been carrying so Delphine could take both her arms.

“I’m OK,” she assured her, as Cosima helped her sit back down on a one of the blankets. She shifted uncomfortably against the uneven surface until she wasn’t putting as much pressure on her injury. “It was a long walk, that’s all.”

“You shouldn’t have put so much strain on it,” Cosima rebuked.

Delphine closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, too sore to be arguing about this again. They sat together silently for a minute as she recovered. Aurora made contact briefly to ask if she was OK but fortunately she was so far away now that she’d barely felt the incident and when Delphine assured her that they were fine she broke the connection.

“Does it still hurt?” Cosima asked eventually. This time her words were sympathetic.

“It’s going away,” Delphine told her wearily.

She expected another resentful remark but instead Cosima sat uncharacteristically still, staring down at her hands pensively, and Delphine thought that this was worse.

“I’m sorry,” Cosima said eventually. “I’m sorry. I just…” she sighed. “I just wish I understood what’s happening to you.”

“And I wish I understood why you’re so angry with me,” Delphine admitted.

“I’m not….” Cosima objected, lifting her head, but she stopped when Delphine rose an eyebrow at her and stared back down at her lap, shrugging unhappily. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Just tell me what you’re thinking,” Delphine pleaded, hating how miserable she was making her.

“What if you don’t like it,” Cosima mumbled.

“Are you angry with me?” Delphine asked again.

Cosima gave her head a slow shake. “I don’t know. Maybe?” Delphine’s heart sank and when Cosima looked up at her, her eyes were bright. “I think I’m just scared.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Delphine promised. “And neither would Aurora. I know you don’t like her but-“

“It’s not about that,” Cosima told her grimly. “ _She_ scares me, Delphine. The connection between you two… You could have died today and you hurt yourself walking all that way but you’d still do it again, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, I would,” she answered, wishing she had a way to make her understand. “She’s a good person, Cosima. You don’t have to be afraid of her.”

“You barely know her,” Cosima objected miserably. “And I’ve seen what she’s like. She wants to win this war at any cost, that’s why she hasn’t given us the book back by now. How can you go along with whatever she tells you when you know how single-minded she is?”

“Because Aurora isn’t DYAD,” she shot back, surprising herself by raising her voice.

Cosima didn’t trust her. That was what it always came back to wasn’t it? Maybe it always would. Perhaps she was forever going to see every decision Delphine made through this lens of suspicion.

Cosima’s forehead furrowed in confusion. “DYAD?”

“I know what she’s capable of,” Delphine pressed. Cosima looked skeptical but kept going. “Listen to me, you don’t need to be afraid of Aurora. She doesn’t control me and I don’t control her. Yes, I care about her but it goes both ways. Do you know how much she hated bringing me with her? But she had to and when I made a mistake she took a great risk to save me. I don’t think she was supposed to, but she did. You can be angry with me if you want to, and I understand if you still don’t trust me but-”

“What?” Cosima was taken aback. “That’s what you think this is about?”

Delphine dropped her gaze. “What else would it be? You know that she has no secrets from me.”

“God, Delphine. Really?” Cosima asked disbelievingly. “She kept the book from you. She was lying to both of us. It was never you I didn’t trust. After all we’ve been through you really think I don’t trust you?”

“ _Because_ of what we’ve been through,” Delphine argued, unable to keep her emotion out her voice. “How can you possibly trust me now, after the things I did?”

“Delphine…” Cosima’s voice was soft but she couldn’t look at her.

“I don’t regret it,” she went on resolutely. “Not… not all of it. I kept my promise and if that’s driven a wedge between us, I can accept that,” she said, trying and failing to sound brave. “You and your sisters are alive and free. I saved you and I can live with whatever that cost, but Aurora… she’s still trying to keep her promise. She’s just like I was, or maybe she is me I don’t know, but I look at her and I see myself…” She trailed off, fighting back tears and wondering if anything she’d said made sense.

“OK, wow.” Cosima stood up and Delphine buried her face in her hands. “That’s… total bullshit.”

She snapped her head up. “It’s not-“ she objected, hurt.

“I’m not talking about that stuff with Aurora,” Cosima said quickly. “That stuff you said about us? How there’s a wedge between us and I don’t trust you and… What? You think I’m just waiting for you to screw me over again?”

 _Again._ It was strange, how much regret a single word could hold.

Delphine ducked her head as tears began to roll down her cheeks. “Are you?” she asked weakly.

 Their entire relationship had begun as a lie. She’d done things she didn’t think she deserved forgiveness for, stealing Cosima’s blood, lying to her about her treatment, threatening an innocent woman. Cosima was angry with Aurora for making a mistake on the mission but Delphine had made far worse ones in the name of saving her and her sisters. Her shoulders shook as she wept, unable to hold it back any longer. Cosima thought Aurora was ruthless but she’d been so much worse.

“No.” Cosima knelt down in front of her, taking both of her hands when she continued to cry. “No. Hey, Delphine look at me.” When Delphine lifted her chin she saw that Cosima’s expression had softened and her tears were stemmed by the sincerity in her eyes. “I forgive you, OK? For everything you did. And I still trust you, you know why?” Delphine sniffed, shaking her head and Cosima gently pushed their hands towards her chest, pressing them purposefully over Delphine’s heart. “That’s why,” she said softly.

Delphine gripped Cosima’s hands, her heart beating warm against them, and she saw how much she meant what she was saying.

“You made me a promise,” Cosima continued. “And now I’m going to make you one. I promise that I trust you, and that I choose you and I’m going to keep choosing you no matter how impossible our lives get or how many hard choices we have to make.”

 A smile crept slowly onto her face, widening when Cosima mirrored it. She shifted to sit beside Delphine, pulling her hands to her lips to gently kiss her fingers before bringing them down onto her lap.

“I don’t want to fight anymore,” she said.

 “Neither do I,” Delphine agreed.

“And I shouldn’t have gotten angry at you. I just… really hate not knowing if you’re OK,” she admitted. “I guess I just felt… helpless. Because she could ask you to do something so dangerous. But maybe I should have just trusted that you were just doing the right thing.” She shrugged. “Turns out I’m not good at letting you go.”

“I never wanted to leave you,” Delphine told her. “But Aurora and I care about each other. Like you care about your sisters. And I trust her, Cosima. She only seems cold because sometimes she has to be, but she cares so much more than you know. She has a good heart, I’ve seen it.”

“Just like you do,” Cosima said softly. She rested her head on Delphine’s shoulder, pausing to play with their hands as she thought that through, and Delphine nuzzled her cheek against her hair. “Do you really think you used to be her?” she asked at last.

“I don’t know,” Delphine admitted. “But I hope not.”

That took her by surprise. “Why not?”

“Because,” Delphine said, rubbing Cosima’s hand between her palms, “if I have a soul, I want it to stay with you, not become someone else. If you aren’t Sarah, why do I need to be Aurora?”

Cosima chuckled. “You just want to keep me forever,” she teased. Delphine nodded enthusiastically against her and she laughed. “OK, deal. And I’ll try to trust her. I know how important she is to you, but I don’t want to be apart from you again here. It’s too dangerous. If something happens I want to be there. Even if I, uh, even if I’m pretty useless,” she added jokingly.

“You wont need to worry about that anymore,” Delphine told her. “Aurora isn’t going to take me on another assignment.”

“How do you know that?” Cosima asked.

She sighed. “We can’t shut each other out. If I’m scared, she feels all of it and she says she can’t concentrate when that happens. We’re working on it, but it’s… difficult…”

“Wait… so did she feel that just now?” Cosima wondered, sitting up in surprise.

“Probably,” Delphine admitted. “She’s far away but it was very strong. She isn’t spying on us,” she added at Cosima’s expression. “This is between me and you. She just knows that I love you.”

Cosima leaned her head back on her shoulder. “OK,” she accepted. “And I hope you know I love her too,” she added as if she were speaking to Aurora.

Delphine laughed. “It’s not a telephone. It doesn’t work that way.”

“No?” Cosima asked.

“No,” she chuckled. “And I’m not supposed to talk to her right now.”

“Ah, OK. Well, whatever it is, I think you’re officially weirder than me now,” Cosima joked and she laughed again.

“Hmm.” Delphine stroked her hair. “You once played a board game for eight hours,” she pointed out in amusement. “And you’ve never heard the things you say when you’re sleeping…”

“It’s so cute that you think that’s a long time,” Cosima mused. “And I don’t sleep talk.”

“You do,” Delphine told her, amused.

“Hmmm… if you say so. But you snore.” Before Delphine could protest, Cosima gave her cheek a kiss and stood up to continue unpacking the supplies. “…Loudly!” she added impishly.

“Cosima!” Delphine objected, laughing.

“OK, it’s not that loud,” she admitted, bringing the box over. “It’s actually kind of cute. And maybe I do say things in my sleep sometimes.” She shrugged. “How does it work?”

“Sleep talking?” Delphine teased.

Cosima placed box between them and started to open it. “Your, uh, psychic connection or whatever it is.” Delphine looked up at her and she smiled, reaching out to touch her chin with the tips of her fingers. “I want to know everything about you. And, apparently, I have no idea how it works,” she went on, going back to taking out the supplies. “So, you could explain to me. If you want to.”

Delphine smiled, warmth rising in her chest. “OK.”

////

That night Cosima sat by the fire with Harry, waiting for Delphine to finish showing Aurora how to use some of the new equipment. This time she’d taken a cup of porridge and it was awful but she was hungry enough that she didn’t really care.

“I dunno,” she said squinting over her glasses at the book they’d laid out in front of them. “I think mine’s pretty bad. But that’s not my point. I’m not saying all technology is bad.”

“Just new technology,” Harry said, unconvinced. “Which lenses were at one time. You can still read it, right?” he added, nodding towards the book.

“Oh, well yeah but that’s not the same as reanimating someone from the dead,” she pointed out before squinting at the book again. “Sort of?” she answered. “It’s… definitely letters.”

 “Can I see?” he asked, pointing to her glasses. “I’ll trade you.”

“Sure.” She took her glasses off and they made the exchange.

“OK, but reanimation is impossible,” Harry pointed out as he put her glasses on. “Marry Shelly based her story on galvanism.“

“Yeah, the electrical stimulation of the muscle fibres,” Cosima elaborated as she put his glasses on. They felt strange on her face, too light. “I know. The corpses were never really alive, but that’s not the point. It’s a metaphor for the dangers of technology. Of interfering with things in nature that we don’t understand.”

“I don’t understand how your vision is so bad,” Harry teased. He adjusted her glasses over his face, looking over them and then through them again. “You weren’t kidding.”

“I don’t know if the words are blurry because of my eyes or your lenses,” Cosima, added with a laugh.

“What are you doing?”

They twisted around and Cosima saw a pair of blurry shapes approaching them. She recognized Aurora’s voice and was pretty sure the other one was Delphine.

When Aurora got closer, Cosima thought she looked amused. She took a seat beside Harry and Delphine sat down beside Cosima so that they were sandwiched between them.

“You’re Aurora, right?” Harry asked, jokingly.

“Am I?” Aurora asked, copying Delphine’s accent. “Maybe you’d know if you were wearing your glasses.”

“Please don’t do that,” Harry complained good naturedly and she smirked at him.

“Well, I know which one’s mine,” Cosima joked, nudging Delphine’s arm.

“Do you?” Delphine asked, almost sounding like Aurora.

“Hey, that was pretty good,” Aurora encouraged.

“I’m getting a headache,” Harry said, but he was grinning at them.

“Why are you wearing Cosima’s glasses?” Aurora asked him.

She was smiling too, more relaxed than Cosima had ever seen her and she wondered if Delphine had told her about their conversation earlier… or if she’d had to. The connection between them was still confusing but it was clear how important they were to each other and maybe this was her chance to make amends with her.  

“We want to see who has the worst vision between us,” she explained. “But it’s kind of hard because we both have terrible vision.”

“Can I see?” Aurora asked, pointing to the glasses Harry was wearing.

 Harry turned to Cosima who shrugged. She had promised to trust Aurora, maybe this was step one. First with her glasses, then maybe with something a little bigger.  

“Harry’s too,” Aurora added as she tried on Cosima’s.

Cosima handed the glasses to Harry, who passed them on to Aurora. She tried on both, lifting the book they’d been using each time to test them.

“So?” Harry asked.

“Cosima’s definitely worse,” she decided, offering both pairs back.

“I knew it.” Cosima raised both hands in celebration and Delphine did the same beside her. “I win.”

“Sure, you win not being able to see,” Harry conceded, smiling as he took his glasses back from Aurora and Cosima and Delphine high-fived.  

“You’re still pretty bad,” Aurora commented in amusement.

“Thanks for that,” Harry joked.

She laughed, giving him a good-natured nudge with her shoulder. “That’s what I’m here for.”

She didn’t look like a spy then, neither of them did, but she’d never seen Aurora so off-guard. For the first time, she wasn’t asking for anything or trying to solve a problem or planning something dangerous. She was just Aurora, without the gravity of a mission or Cosima’s resentment to distort her and Cosima caught herself feeling something close to affection watching her fool around with Harry. She’d been protecting him too, she realized, asking Delphine to go get those supplies, and as she sat there laughing with him Cosima could see that underneath the face she put on she was just a person trying to survive something horrible. More than that, she was a person taking responsibility for stopping it.

And wasn’t that a familiar story? Someone she’d watched make hard choices and then blamed for them?

_I look at her and I see myself._

She wasn’t Delphine, and their problems definitely weren’t the same, but they weren’t so different either. If they didn’t have the same soul, maybe they had the same heart and if that were true then Aurora must be something special.

“I never thanked you, Aurora” she said quietly, waiting as the three of them turned their attention to her. “You gave us a place to stay and you, uh,” She turned to Delphine, touching her arm with the back of her hand and smiling gratefully. “You helped me find Delphine. So, thanks.”

Aurora looked surprised but she smiled back and Cosima could see Delphine beaming at her from the corner of her eye.

“I’m glad I could help,” she said.

Delphine and Aurora exchanged a look and Cosima wondered if they were talking to each other. For the first time, that didn’t scare her. She trusted Delphine and Delphine trusted Aurora and that was more than enough for her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got really long because I added the scene with Cosima Harry at the beginning but I felt it needed it because I wanted to have Cosima to be allowed to voice her perspective with a neutral party the way Delphine gets to with Aurora and also I just really like Harry.


	14. Chapter 14

Cosima wasn’t sure what had woken her up. It must have been Aurora’s shadow against the navy pre-dawn light streaking into the tent, because she hadn’t made a sound as she’d slipped outside. She wasn’t even sure if Aurora had been sleeping beside them or if she’d just come in to grab something because she hadn’t been there when they’d gone to bed.

Delphine was still asleep, snoring softly and Cosima was curled up against her left side. As she sat up, she debated waking her, but her leg had been bothering her and she knew she’d had troubles getting to sleep so she left her as she was and crawled out of the tent as quietly as she could into the cold morning air.

Aurora sat on a stump, a backpack on her lap into which she was packing a small inventory. She looked up before Cosima spoke, hearing her approach.

“Hey,” Cosima said. She, rubbed her arms, supressing a shiver. “Are you going somewhere?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a few days,” Aurora assured her, pausing in her packing. “It’s still early, you should go back to sleep...”

“Did you sleep?” Cosima asked, taking a seat beside the stump instead. The ground was unpleasantly cold on her butt. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“A few hours,” she answered, accepting her company.

Cosima watched her load a revolver, hiding it in a holster behind her back.

“Where are you going?” she asked, eyeing it with sudden concern.

But Aurora shook her head. “I can’t tell you that. I’ll be OK,” she added at Cosima’s expression. “And if I’m not, Alfred will get you home. He doesn’t know anything, but he’ll get you to where you need to go and he won’t ask too many questions.”

“Where would you- wait, like if you die?” Cosima asked, jolted by the realization of what she was saying.

“Or if I’m captured,” she added, continuing to pack. “I talked to Delphine last night,” she went on. “She was awake longer than you. She knows what to do if that happens.”

Cosima sat uncomfortably with that information for a minute, letting Aurora finish what she was doing, before speaking again.

“Can I do anything?” she said at last.

Aurora shook her head. “Just hold tight until I get back.”

“And then what?” Cosima wondered. “We’ve been here for days already and…” She paused, thinking of the connection between Aurora and Delphine and choosing her next words carefully. “I’m worried about Delphine. Her leg has been bothering her for a while now and she says it isn’t infected but she needs a real hospital. She got shot and all she’s really done so far is put a band aide on it.”

“I’m working on it,” Aurora promised.

“How?” Cosima pressed. “We need to go home, Aurora. I understand that you have other priorities, but she’s my priority and I don’t think it’s safe for her to stay here much longer.”

“I know,” Aurora answered gravely. “I’m worried too. She’s in a lot of pain, I can feel it, and I don’t want anything to happen to either of you.” She placed a hand on Cosima’s arm. “I’m getting those train tickets, you just have to be patient a bit longer. I know I haven’t given you many reasons to trust me but I do care about both of you.”

“You mean me too?” Cosima asked, surprised. “Not just, you know, ‘cause Delphine would freak if something happened to me?”

She took her hand back, shrugging her shoulders. “I know you through her. I can see what she loves about you. I don’t feel exactly the same way, but it’s hard to know someone like that and not care about them.”

“I sort of just figured you thought I was a pain,” Cosima admitted.

Aurora snorted. “You are a pain.”

“Yeah, well, sorry about that,” Cosima said, touching her hair awkwardly. “You know… most of it anyway,” she added.

“It’s OK,” Aurora assured her. “I haven’t made it easy. But… I know how I feel.” She brought a hand up to place her fingers over her heart. “You’re both in here and I can’t get you out. I don’t want to. I just want you somewhere safe.”

Cosima watched her hand until she let it drop back down, thinking of how much she’d looked like Delphine like that. “That’s… oddly comforting…” she admitted. “Was Annie in there too?”

“Annie’s been in there for a long time,” Aurora told her, and it seemed like she wanted to say more but she didn’t.

Once again, Cosima hesitated before speaking. “So, we still really need to talk about the book,” she said slowly.

Aurora nodded, as if she’d seen that coming. “I still don’t know what to tell you.”

Cosima crossed her arms. “I’m not going to let it go. Delphine says she can’t convince you not to use it, but you haven’t told anyone about it yet either.”

“It’s not a decision I’m taking lightly,” Aurora told her. “And it’s not because I don’t understand consequences. Everything I do has consequences. We kill someone too important and a village gets slaughtered as reprisals. If I hesitate to take a shot, I’m not the only one who could be killed. I carry cyanide hidden in a pocket mirror because I know that if I make a mistake I might have to use it. You’re both telling me that time is dangerous but neither of you actually know for sure and if I can just control it-”

“You can’t,” Cosima told her sharply. She shook her head. “You can’t control what happens after you use it. You’ve got a monster in a box and when you let it out it’s not just going to land on what you want it to and it’s not going to listen to you.” Aurora stared back at her, unreadable, and she pushed on. “Aurora, please, just trust me. I know you’re just trying to help people but this isn’t the answer.”

“You really believe that,” Aurora remarked quietly. “Delphine too.” She sighed. “I’ll think about it. But I have to go.” She stood up and Cosima did the same. “Get some sleep,” she instructed kindly. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

“OK,” Cosima conceded, at least she’d listened this time. Aurora started to walk away but she called out to her. “Be careful, OK? I’m sure Alfred’s nice and everything, but I’d miss you.”

Aurora smiled at her, waving goodbye, and she waved back. For a few seconds, she stood there worrying about their conversation and watching her go until the cold drove her back inside.

///

Two days later Cosima was standing at the edge of the camp, waiting for Delphine and Aurora so they could begin their journey to the train that would take them to St. Lynette. She wore a white dress with little black polka dots on it that buttoned up at the front. It was uncomfortable and she wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing it back home but Aurora had insisted that they needed to look as much as regular French country-folk as possible and at least it had short sleeves.

“Careful.” Something flicked against one of Cosima’s dreads and she turned to see Aurora holding out a bonnet. “Your hair doesn’t match your outfit.”

“Seriously?” she asked. “It’s bad enough wearing this dress, I’m going to look like someone’s grandmother.”

“You need to blend in,” Aurora reminded her, unconcerned about that problem. “I want this trip to go as smoothly as possible.”

She was wearing a dress too, brown and white with a black jacket over it and a backpack on her back. It seemed like it should be too constricting for her but she moved in it easily. Delphine must have still been changing.

“How are we going to hide the fact that I’m Anglophone?” Cosima wondered. “I can...” she did her best to mimic Delphine’s accent, “parler français.”

“I think it’s better if you don’t talk,” Aurora decided.

“Wow, that bad? Let’s hope I don’t have to talk to anyone,” Cosima said with a grin. “Hey, don’t look so grim,” she added when Aurora only stared at her. “I’m joking. I’ll totally shut up if you think that’s safer. You can just say someone cut out my tongue or I got shot in the throat, that sort of thing.”

“We’ll say you had scarlet fever,” Aurora told her. “If anyone asks, but hopefully we’ll be left alone.”

“Yeah, well from my experience, twins attract attention,” Cosima warned.

“Not nearly as much as you do,” Aurora answered with some amusement.

“I’ll try not be offended by that,” Cosima laughed.

“It isn’t a bad a thing,” Aurora said, smiling at her briefly before her expression clouded again.

“I’m sorry we’re making all this so difficult for you,” Cosima said sincerely, knowing that having to wear a dress and a bonnet was the least of their worries on this trip. “You have so much to deal with already, and I can’t even get a few stupid words right.”

Aurora shook her head. “It’s not that…”

 She shrugged her bag off of her shoulder, taking out the little notebook Cosima had given her and Cosima watched her carefully as she rubbed her thumb across the cover. The other woman seemed deep in thought about something and Cosima wasn’t sure whether or not to say anything even though she was glad that Aurora had chosen to bring it up again.

“It goes both ways, you know,” she said at last. “Trust.” She looked up. “Do you understand why I wanted this information?”

Cosima hesitated. “Um, I thought I did,” she admitted. “But the history books don’t really prepare you for what it’s like to live in it. And I don’t think I’ll ever really understand you the way Delphine does.”

She nodded, accepting that. “But you still think it’s too dangerous.”

“Yeah, I do. I still think that there’s too much we don’t understand about time for us to have that kind of power,” she answered definitively. “I want the same thing you do, Aurora. I just want to keep people from getting hurt.”

“Then take it,” she said, holding it out to her. She placed it in Cosima’s hands and as small as it was it felt like it held the weight of both their worlds.

Cosima didn’t need a psychic connection with Aurora to understand the amount of faith she was placing in her. Her entire life was dedicated to stopping this war, not because she was ruthless but be because she cared about each and every single innocent victim. In her hands was proof that Aurora’s main priority was and always would be the people of this world and proof that she thought enough of Cosima to trust her with their lives too.

Before she realized what she was doing, she’d pulled Aurora into a tight hug. “Take care of yourself, OK?” she said.

“You too,” Aurora answered, squeezing her back. “And take care of Delphine. I know she’s strong but she needs you sometimes.”

“I will,” Cosima promised.

///

Clouds were gathering above them and there was a chill in the air but the three of them remained optimistic as they made their way through the woods.

“So there aren’t any, like, bears or something out here, are there?” Cosima asked, eyeing the shadows between the trees.

“Of all the things to worry about, you choose the wildlife,” Aurora mused.

Delphine took Cosima’s hand, leaning in playfully. “Just stay next to me, I’ll keep you safe,” she teased.

“The animals don’t usually bother us,” Aurora added. She padded the side of her dress, feeling the hard metal outline underneath it. “And if we really need it, I have a gun.”

“Of course you do,” Cosima said, but she didn’t seem to be too regretful that Aurora had it.

For a while, they walked together in easy silence, Cosima and Delphine still holding hands. Out here, they didn’t need to hide their bond from anyone because neither Aurora nor the trees nor the animals would care and they’d slipped back so easily into acting like themselves. The two of them were lucky, she thought, that they could live their lives with their own faces on.

“Something’s bothering you,” Delphine commented, breaking into her thoughts.

“You aren’t supposed to be in my head,” Aurora reminded her as Cosima looked curiously between them.

They were still trying to keep themselves separate, both agreeing that it was safer that way, but it was difficult and it only seemed to be getting harder the more time they spent together.

“I’m sorry,” Delphine said. “It’s strong, and I was worried about you.”

She and Cosima eyed her with concern and Aurora sighed. Why not tell them? They weren’t going to be here for very long anyway, maybe it would be good to have someone to talk to who might understand.

“I’m going undercover when I come back,” she told them. “As a German woman named Helene Bauer.”

“Are you scared?” Cosima asked.

Delphine gave her head a small shake, feeling Aurora’s answer before she said it.

“It’s more complicated than that,” she explained to Cosima. “I’m always scared of the Germans… you’re stupid if you’re not… but I’m scared of Helene too.”

Cosima frowned but, once again, Delphine understood. “You hate her,” she said sympathetically.

“She’s going to have to befriend a Nazi’s wife,” Aurora told them bitterly. “I’m going to have to flatter her and pretend to like her while her husband is off helping the Reich slaughter innocent people. And the others… they’re all acting like I’m getting some sort of vacation, even Alfred, but I’d rather be out on the battlefield than dressed up like a doll and pretending anything they’re doing is OK….” She stopped, trying to calm herself down because she knew that her anger was rolling right off of her and into Delphine. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I shouldn’t be saying all this… It isn’t your problem.”

Delphine’s fingers touched her palm, her fingers curling around her hand when she felt that Aurora wasn’t going to pull away, and she gave her hand a squeeze. She knew Aurora’s trepidation in a way that she’d never have been able to explain with words and she had to hold back her tears at her easy acceptance of it.

“Sometimes we need to play along,” Delphine said slowly. “So that we can deal a harder blow later.” She shook Aurora’s hand gently and she could feel how much she meant what she said next. “You will never be one of them, Aurora, you’re too much yourself for that. Everything you do is to stop them and you are going to win because you are so much more than they can ever be.”

Each word she spoke had come right from her heart Aurora didn’t know what to say. She was worried she was going to start crying and then Delphine would too and maybe Cosima, and she didn’t think she could handle that.

“You don’t have to say anything,” Delphine told her, reading her mind again. “But it’s true.”

“Yeah, she’s kind of a lot sometimes,” Cosima joked flatly and Aurora laughed gratefully at the distraction.

“Brat,” Delphine accused, smiling.

“Hey, I never said that was a bad thing,” Cosima defended. “That’s why we love you. And, uh, for the record I agree with Delphine,” she added to Aurora. “I’m sure you’re gonna kick their ass. Helena is a great name too. You know my sister is- whaaa”

The ground fell away suddenly and she’d slipped down the ravine. Delphine tried to catch her but the fall had taken her by surprise too and their hands broke apart and she tumbled down into the creek below.

“Cosima!” Delphine called.

“I’m OK,” Cosima called up. The water was shallow enough that she could sit up in it and when she lifted her arms they were covered in mud. “It smells really bad and I think I fell on a frog or something, but I’m OK.”

“Be careful,” Delphine told her.

“Yeah, thanks for the warning,” Cosima shot back sarcastically.

“I’ll get her,” Aurora offered. “Just stay there, and don’t make any noise.”

“Oh, shit, sorry,” Cosima said loudly, clamping he mouth shut when Aurora shot her a look. “Sorry,” she mouthed.

Aurora made her way carefully down the steep hill as Cosima got to her feet. The dress was ruined and she picked her bonnet off the branch it had snagged on on her way. Cosima took it from her, looking guilty.

“I guess I’m gonna have to change,” she realized.

Aurora touched her forehead, frustrated but knowing it was an accident. “It’ll be tight, but I think we can still make it.”

“Um, maybe we can wipe it off,” she suggested, shaking one of the sleeves. “Do you think if we rinsed it it would dry in time for-“

“Stop!” Someone was shouting in German from the top of the ravine and Aurora felt Delphine’s stomach drop.

_‘What-‘_

_‘It’s the soldier,’ Delphine thought in alarm. ‘He’s seen me. He can’t find Cosima…’_

_‘Delphine, no,’ Aurora thought, knowing exactly what she was about to do._

_‘Keep her safe.’_

_‘Wait!’_

But she was already running towards the soldier and Aurora raised her hands, grasping at the air as if that would stop her. “No, no, no...” she muttered under her breath.

“What?” Cosima squeaked. “What-“

But Aurora rushed forward, clamping a hand over her mouth and she fell silent for a second until they heard a shot go off and Aurora had to catch her as she bolted forward.

“Let me go,” she growled.

“Be quiet!” Aurora hissed. “We can’t help her if we’re dead.”

Cosima stopped struggling, and Aurora let go of her. “What do we do?” she squeaked.

Finger to her lips, Aurora motioned for her to follow her and they carefully climbed back up the ravine to peer over the edge. The low growing shrubs kept them hidden but the soldier was facing them, Delphine between them and him, and Aurora knew she’d run towards him to keep him away from the cliff so that he wouldn’t spot her and Cosima. It was stupid and it could have gotten her killed, but it had given them an advantage.

“Who are you?” the man demanded in German, he sounded farther away but his voice boomed menacingly. Neither of them heard Delphine reply. “You’re from the camp in the woods? The one with the spies?”

 “Don’t move,” Aurora whispered into Cosima’s ear. She placed a hand on her forearm but Cosima barely seemed to notice, she was so absorbed in what was happening in front of them.

She pulled out the revolver she’d tucked under her dress, trying to aim it at the soldier but he was too far away and there were too many trees. She couldn’t guarantee a shot and if she started a gunfight right now, with Delphine in between them, she might get her killed.

“Tell me where the camp is,” the he demanded.

Delphine hadn’t given them away yet. She stared at the barrel of his gun and even through her fear Aurora could feel her defiance. “Je ne comprends pas,” she said.

The ground next to Delphine exploded and she flinched but she still wouldn’t answer. “Do you understand that?” he barked, switching to French. He shot the other side of her, dirt jetting into the air with a loud crack and Delphine’s fear roared for a moment, too loudly for Aurora to think. “You understand that don’t you?” he waved the gun. “Where is the camp?”

Crying, Delphine shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re-“

He hit her across the face with the back of his gun and Aurora had to bite down on her tongue to stop from crying out in pain. Delphine screamed and Cosima struggled against Aurora’s grip but she’d recovered quickly, feeling only the echo of Delphine’s pain now, and was able to pull her against her and clamp a hand over her mouth.

“You can’t help her,” she whispered. Cosima tried frantically to throw her off but Aurora was a lot stronger than her and there was no way she was letting her go out there. “If he finds out she’s traveling with an American it’s going to be a lot worse for her,” she hissed.

To her relief, Cosima stopped moving but her eyes never left Delphine whose thoughts were swirling and muffled by the throbbing bruise on the side of her face. She was reorienting herself, already trying to sit up, but she didn’t know what to do.

_‘We’re right here,’ Aurora told her. ‘Hold on, I’m going to see if I can get closer.’_

_‘Please hurry…’_

“Stay here,” Aurora told Cosima firmly.

Cosima didn’t respond but she didn’t move either when Aurora let go of her and she didn’t have time wait for her because the soldier was already shouting at Delphine with renewed venom.

As quietly as she could, she pulled herself up behind one of the thicker shrubs and began circling around, crawling through the cover of the undergrowth, to look for a clearer shot.

A few seconds later he hit Delphine again. She heard her cry out at the same moment a sharp pain hit her in her stomach that stopped her in her tracks. He was still yelling at her, awful threats that fueled her terror despite how hard she was trying to keep herself calm, and just as Aurora was able to move again she felt another burst of pain in her side that left her gasping for breath.

He was going to beat her until she told him something and Aurora couldn’t do anything when Delphine was in so much pain. Her heart sank as she realized that she might not be able to do this. Delphine was doing her best to keep her fear in check and away from Aurora but there as nothing she could do about the pain and Aurora couldn’t block it out.

More yelling, then another blow that knocked the wind out of both of them. She wasn’t going to give them up, they had the same heart and just like Aurora would have done anything to protect Cosima, Delphine would do anything to protect her team. What would happen if he killed her? Would Aurora feel her die? She closed her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks and clenched her teeth until her jaw hurt and she could concentrate enough to get up and look for a shot.

His foot came down on Delphine’s injury and Aurora bit down on her arm to keep from screaming, falling to her knees as Delphine shrieked in agony. She would have given anything to make him stop but she couldn’t block out the pain long enough to do anything. He must have realized he’d found a weak point because he pushed down on Delphine’s leg and all Aurora could do was lay on her side, holding her own leg as Delphine’s shrill screams tore at her heart. If any of them survived this, she was going to kill him.

“Leave her alone!”

Cosima’s shout distracted the soldier long enough to give the pain time to die down, on Aurora’s end at least, and she managed to push herself to her feet. Peering over the top of the bushes she saw Cosima charging the man and in an instant she was bolting towards both of them, stealth forgotten.

Cosima bowled into the soldier first, powered by rage and adrenaline, and there was the loud crack of the gun going off as she knocked him over. Her body jerked with the shot and she landed like a dead weight on top of him. He pushed her off onto her back and, gasping for breath, she struggled feebly to move for only a moment before her body gave out. Both she and the soldier were covered in blood.

“Cosima!” Delphine shrieked, rushing to her side.

The soldier was getting up but Aurora slammed her foot down on his hand, dislodging the gun from his grip and breaking a few bones before pulling a out knife from her under her dress and bringing it down hard into his throat.

He died quickly, staring up at her in shock before his eyes glazed over.

Aurora felt Delphine like as crack of lightning and she looked up to find pressing her hand down on the wound on Cosima’s chest as the other woman gasped for breath. There was so much blood, too much, and Cosima was already ashen and sweaty. She was half wheezing, half whimpering and the sounds she was making were burning holes into Delphine’s heart.

“Keep breathing,” she begged her, her cheeks still shone with tears but her eyes were lit with determination and she was doing her best to stem the flow of blood. “Keep breathing. I know it hurts but I’m right here.”

Delphine’s thoughts hit her like knives and Aurora knew that she was trying to figure out how to save her but she couldn’t move. Cosima had been right on top of him when the gun had gone off. He’d hit her point blank in the chest and she could see that the result had been catastrophic. There was nothing to figure out, she was dying, but Aurora couldn’t let herself think about that because then Delphine would realize it too and she didn’t know if either of them could survive that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the it, almost the end. Next posting should be on Tuesday and I will post two chapters, the final one and the epilogue because I think they go together. Think of it as dinner and dessert? haha.
> 
> Aurora's undercover name is Helene, but if you haven't watched the show it does sound like Helena when she says it (maybe that's the way you'd pronounce it in German?) so that's why Cosima is confused.


	15. Chapter 15

Delphine pressed down on the wound on Cosima’s chest, watching helplessly as she grew paler and paler. It had all happened so quickly, one second Cosima had been shouting and the next she could barely breathe. And there was so much blood…

“I’m sorry,” she wept. “I’m so sorry… I should have kept you safe. I promised you…”

Cosima’s fingers brushed weakly under the bruise sprouting on her jaw, sliding through her tears. “It was my turn…” she whispered. Her mouth twitched, the way it did when she was making a joke. “… guess I’m not as… as good at it…” The way her voice rattled breathlessly tore at Delphine’s heart.

“Shhh,” she urged. Even as frail as she was, her Cosima’s spirit shone through and Delphine swallowed the lump rising in her throat as she traced her fingers down her cheek, keeping her other hand pressed down over her injury. “You’re going to be OK… I’ll just… I’ll...” But she didn’t know what to do. The wound was so close to her heart it seemed impossible that the bullet hadn’t damaged it. What could she do out here if it had?

_‘Help us,’ she thought desperately._

_‘… I’m so sorry…” Aurora answered wretchedly but Delphine shut out the rest of the thought._

Cosima had dropped her hand and now she gripped Delphine’s wrist with more strength than she’d thought she had left. “Delphine, don’t… don’t go,” she begged raggedly.

She couldn’t stop the bleeding, it was coming too fast and there was so much of it. Already Cosima was ashen and cold. She shook her head, trying to think, trying to come up with a solution, but Cosima squeezed her wrist again.

“… look at me…” she pleaded. “Please, Delphine... don’t leave me alone…”

Their eyes met and they both knew what was happening. Cosima needed her to be there, her head and her heart not just her body. She wanted her to hold her hand through this instead of fighting it when they had no hope of winning.

“I won’t leave you,” Delphine promised. Very gently, she lifted Cosima’s head onto her lap so she wouldn’t have to do this on the ground. She kept her one hand pressed against the wound, stemming the blood flow for as long as she could, and used her other one to stroke the top of her head. “I will never leave you.”

Cosima nodded, so small it was almost imperceptible. “OK,” she squeaked. She was still clutching onto Delphine’s wrist but her grip was getting weaker and Delphine put her hand over hers so she could keep her fingers curled around it.

“I have you, mon trésor,” she murmured. “Just breathe.”

She felt like she was filled with shards of glass from her throat down to her stomach but she could see how terrified Cosima was and she knew she needed to be strong for her. She still needed her, for just a few more minutes…

“I’m right here, my love,” she said gently. Cosima watched her like she was the last light in a storm and she struggled to find something to say to keep that light shining for her. “You’re not alone. I’m here. I-“

She fought and lost to hold back a sob and she felt Cosima’s thumb rub slowly over the side of her hand, as if she were trying to comfort her, but she was already too weak to speak anymore. Delphine took a long breath in through her nose, fighting against her tears even though keeping herself from weeping and shaking meant keeping herself so stiff it was painful.

“I love you,” she whispered when she could keep her voice steady. She trailed her hand down the side of Cosima’s face until she was cupping her cheek and Cosima leaned into it, watching her. Her eyes were still bright but her breathing was faltering. “You are the best thing that I have ever known and I will always love you.”

Cosima’s mouth twitched again, half way to a smile, and she squeezed Delphine’s wrist one more time before her fingers loosened and her eyes glazed over.

Delphine stared, waiting for her to come back for longer than was rational, long after she could feel deep down in her heart that she was gone.

“No…” she croaked. “No, no, no. Wake up.”

 She shook her, horrified at the way her head lolled lifelessly to the side when she did, and at last, with no more reasons to fight it, the dam burst. She let out a wail, pulling Cosima against her. Already she was so cold, loose and heavy like a doll filled with sand instead of the woman so filled with life that she’d known. It wasn’t right.

_‘Delphine… please… you can’t….’_

Aurora wanted her to be quiet. She was making too much noise, half crying half screaming, but she couldn’t stop and she didn’t care. She clutched Cosima tighter, trying to ignore her. What did it matter? She’d been screaming for so long already.

‘ _Delphine, I’m so sorry-‘_

_‘Go away!’ The thought erupted out of her, a blast fuelled by her grief, but Aurora fought against it. ‘Get out of my head!’_

_‘Delphine please…’_

She was sorry and guilty, worried and afraid for her. But Delphine was feeling too much already and there wasn’t room in her head anymore for both of them. She didn’t want her in there anymore she just wanted whatever was left of Cosima for as long as she could hold onto it. Aurora prodded her one more time, gentle, kind, but the contrast of her spirit with Cosima’s empty body only strengthened Delphine’s grief and ignited her anger into an explosion that pushed Aurora out completely.

And then at last she was alone. She held Cosima tightly, whimpering that she was sorry into the top of her head until she was sobbing so hard that all she could do was lean her cheek on her hair and let herself shake. Nothing else seemed to matter anymore except that she was gone and that that hurt so much Delphine didn’t think she’d ever be able to get up again.

/-/-/

Aurora felt Delphine’s grief hit her like an explosion, knocking away her consciousness and suddenly she was alone, watching her hold onto Cosima with trembling arms and listening to her heartbroken wails. The sight of them, of the wonderful woman she’d just been allowed to know so still and lifeless and of the woman who felt like the second half of heart so raw with pain, was too much for Aurora to bear and she turned away feeling like she’d failed them both.

All she ever did was watch people die and hurt. Strangers, friends, people she loved, it seemed like she was always losing more than she could save and she was so tired. Delphine was right, it didn’t matter how loudly she cried no one could have missed her screams. If they were going to be found, they’d been found already and a couple of minutes to grieve was the only thing she had left to give to her.

As she looked to the trees she was struck by where they’d found themselves. This was where she’d been when she’d switched places with Delphine. Here she’d been thinking of René and her grief for him and now this was the place where Delphine had lost her love. How could that be a coincidence?

Her now quiet mind began pulling at things to piece together. Cosima had told her that Delphine dreamt of her dying hadn’t she? Aurora had thought it had been a translation of her own feelings for René . She’d thought that Delphine had dreamt about Cosima because she felt the same way about her, but now she wasn’t so sure.

If their connection reached across time, then it had already reached this moment too. Delphine had dreamt of Cosima dying because she did die. That was what had connected them. That was why this spot had led to St. Lynette. And if it wasn’t only René's death that had connected them, maybe it wasn’t René that had switched them at all. Maybe it was the same heart feeling the same grief across space and time for two different people tearing at the fabric of time until she and Delphine had fallen into it.

Because her heart and Delphine’s heart were the same. She’d realized that as Cosima had died in her arms. Her physical pain had only reached her as an echo but her grief had been as real as if it were her own. They were connected and that connection had been corrupted by their shared loss and that was the mistake Cosima had been talking about.

And it was a mistake, not the good kind that led to new life but the kind that brought destruction and death, and Aurora couldn’t take it anymore. Not this time. She loved Delphine with all her heart but the two of them should never have existed together if this is what it inevitably led to.

But maybe she could fix it. Because if it was them pulling each other through time then maybe together they could control it.

She moved towards Delphine, kneeling in front of her. They didn’t need to be connected for her to see how broken she was. One side of her face was bruised and bleeding from where she’d been struck and the other half was resting against Cosima’s hair but she’d gone quiet, her eyes shut tight as if she wanted to block out the world. If she noticed her there, she didn’t acknowledge it.

Cosima’s eyes were still open, dark and hazy like the eyes of the dead and Aurora had to resist the urge to shut them because it was making her sick to see her like that. Instead she carefully reached out to touch Delphine’s shoulder, encouraged when she didn’t pull away.

“Delphine, listen to me-“ she began.

Her eyes slowly opened but she wouldn’t look at her. “Leave us alone,” she said dully.

“I want to help,” she insisted.

“You can’t help us anymore,” she whispered tearfully. “Please just go away.”

“I’m not leaving you out here alone,” she said firmly. Delphine closed her eyes again, her breath hitching, and fresh tears rolled silently down her cheeks. “Delphine, please. Listen to me.” Aurora’s own eyes burned with tears but she blinked them away. “I want to fix this. We can still save her.”

“N-no…” Delphine whimpered. “She’s… g-gone…” Her shoulders shook with sobs that sliced at Aurora’s heart. She clutched Cosima tightly, burying her face in her hair until she was able to stop and when she spoke again her voice was ragged. “My poor Cosima… why. Why did she do that? Why didn’t she wait? Why didn’t she stay h-home where it was safe…”

“You know why,” Aurora whispered gently. She stroked Delphine’s hair as she continued to cry into Cosima, wishing that she’d been strong enough to stop this. “She came to take you home, and she wasn’t going to let anyone stop her. But...” She hesitated, praying that she wasn’t wrong about this. “Maybe we can save her Delphine… if we just go forward a little less.”

Delphine looked up, hope sparking through her misery. “What do you mean?” she asked slowly.

Aurora nodded. “We can go back to your time, but if we go back to August nineteenth before any of this happened and I stop you from seeing René … Maybe I can stop us from switching.”

“And then none of this will have happened,” Delphine realized. “We could save her…” Her face crumpled and she shook her head. “How? And how do you know it will work?”

“I don’t,” she admitted. “I don’t even know what changing the past would do to us.”

“It could change where we end up,” Delphine supplied. “Or it could just… erase who we are now…” she looked down at Cosima, deep in thought. Then, very gently, closed her eyes before kissing her eyelids. “I don’t know what she would say to this,” she admitted quietly, staring at her still face. Her hand was still covered in blood and she rested it on top of Cosima’s heart, where her dress was stained red. “But I want her to live. Even if it’s too late for me to have her back. If this means that somewhere, some version of her will survive then I want to try. But… I don’t know if it would be right…”

“I think, whatever this is, we’ve already broken the laws of nature,” Aurora said. She placed her hand over Delphine’s. “Maybe us meeting was the real mistake, and this is how we fix it.”

“Or maybe we aren’t supposed to have this power,” Delphine mumbled, still looking at Cosima.

“Then help me take it away,” Aurora reasoned. “If we stop this, it might break our connection with each other. Then she’ll never have been hurt and neither of us will be able to travel through time. Everything will go back to how it’s supposed to be.”

Still Delphine hesitated, and for the first time since they’d met Aurora didn’t understand.

“Is this really the right thing to do?” she asked miserably. “Or are we pretending it is so we can save her? You know, I made so many mistakes trying to keep her safe. I did horrible things, violated her trust… I can’t do that to her again.”

She squeezed Delphine’s hand. “I gave Cosima the book back,” she told her. “I believe her that time travel is dangerous and if I thought this was wrong, I wouldn’t have suggested it.”

Delphine was crying again, looking to Cosima as if she could find the answers there. “I just want her back,” she choked. “But I’m so confused… I don’t know what to do…”

Aurora stretched her arms around both of them, feeling how cold Cosima was and how much Delphine was trembling. “Then let me do it,” she said. “We’ll go back together. I think we just both have to want it…”

Delphine didn’t answer right away, holding onto to Cosima and letting Aurora hold her. She felt like she was trying to keep them all from drowning but she wasn’t going to let them sink until Delphine told her what she wanted to do.

At last, she felt her nod. “OK.”

Her mind had opened up again, just a crack at first but it quickly widened as their emotions streamed back and forth through it and once again Aurora could feel Delphine’s grief flow through her. It hurt so much that she almost lost herself in it, but they both thought of Cosima and the chance to save her and she found that, together, they were able to keep each other from being consumed by it.

_‘Let us fix it,’ they thought._

She kept her eyes closed but it was getting colder and the sound of leaves rustling above them was fading. Soon even the ground beneath her was gone and all she could feel was Cosima and Delphine before it was replaced by the hard surface of a road and she lifted her head to find it was night.

“Did we?” Delphine breathed.

They were definitely back in Delphine’s time. It was the same street she’d found herself on when she’d first arrived, same lights, same houses, same smell of flowers and baked bread on the breeze.

“…Yeah, I think I have one on my butt…”

They both snapped their heads towards the sound of Cosima’s voice, coming not from the body in Delphine’s arms but from a living woman not too far away, and Delphine closed her eyes, weeping in relief.

Aurora cupped her cheek. “We made it,” she told her. Delphine nodded, letting out a watery chuckle and Aurora kissed her forehead before rising to her feet.

There was a figure, standing under the street light. He hadn’t noticed them yet and he was distorted around the edges, as if she were seeing him through a glass bottle, but Aurora recognized him at once.

_‘Aurora, what do we do?’ Delphine asked uncertainly._

_‘You don’t have to do anything,’ Aurora assured her. ‘Just hold onto Cosima, it’ll be over soon.’_

_‘Do you think it will hurt?’_

_‘No, I don’t. Don't be afraid. We'll be OK.'_

She took a step forward, ready to grab his attention and she felt Delphine’s thoughts coming with her. She was in her head and in her heart, breathtakingly beautiful, and if it weren't for the promise of saving Cosima, Aurora might have faltered in letting her go because the thought of losing her like this was a terrible kind of pain. But she couldn't think about that now, she needed to stop this first. 

“René?” He turned towards her and she held out her hands. “It’s me you’re looking for, not her.” As he moved towards her, both she and Delphine could feel something shift in the air around them and she was certain that it was working. “Come here, my love. You don’t belong here.”

When their hands touched, he only stared, waiting for something and she realized with a pang that this wasn’t René.

“You’re not real,” she whispered.

It had been her all along. It was her grief, not René's ghost, that had taken Delphine. Her inability to let go of the man she loved had leaked across lifetimes and ensnared the woman who’d inherited her heart. She’d done this to Delphine and Cosima.

_‘No,’ Delphine thought firmly. ‘This happened to both of us. We were both ensnared by it. But you can end it.’_

Their heart was broken twice over but neither of them had to be alone in that and for all the pain his death had brought, when Aurora looked back at the projection of René she knew exactly what she needed to do.

“You’re not him,” she said firmly. “My René is in Heaven where he belongs.” She didn’t know if she believed in Heaven but she knew that if it did exist that’s where he’d be. “I would have loved him all my life but…” Her voice broke. “You’re not him and I wont let his memory be death.”

The image of René blew away like dust in the wind, though the air around her was still.

_'We're proof that some things live on after death, Aurora,' Delphine reminded her, feeling her sorrow. 'He's somewhere out there. At peace, I hope.'_

_'I hope so too,' she answered._

Wiping away her tears, she turned away from where the figure had been, looking to Delphine, and saw that both of them had become translucent. At the end of the road, Cosima and the other Delphine were walking past and she could feel that one too, how happy she was, but she let her go and they passed without noticing what was happening.

_‘It’s almost over now,’ she told Delphine._

Aurora came to kneel beside them, kissing Delphine’s temple then leaning down to leave a gentle kiss on Cosima’s forehead. The three of them were nothing more than shapes made from fog now, slowly fading away, but their connection hadn’t faltered.

_‘I love you,’ she thought. ‘Both of you.’_

_‘I love you too,’ Delphine answered. ‘I wish…’_

_‘Me too,’ Aurora thought, not needing her to finish the thought. ‘But we’ll always have each other, whether we know it or not.’_

_‘Thank you, Aurora. For everything.’_

Delphine pulled Cosima up to kiss her hair, before pushing her forehead against hers and leaving it there. “We’ll be together again soon, my love,” she murmured. “I’m sorry you had to go through this, but Aurora and I are going to fix it and you’ll be OK.” She lifted her head, staring down at Cosima with unbridled love as she caressed her face. “That bullet will never touch you, mon trésor. I promise.”

“You’ll be safe,” Aurora whispered. She reached out to gently touch Cosima's temple, as cold as she was now but feeling no pain. "And you won't have to be afraid." 

"And you'll have me to make sure of that," Delphine whispered. She was right in front of Aurora but she sounded far away. "I'll be with you again." 

Aurora smiled, lightened by the relief that that knowledge brought and the last thing she and Delphine felt together was peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter to go! I posted this with the epilogue, because I feel like they go together so ----> it's there when you want it ;)


	16. Chapter 16

It was a beautiful night, the dark sky peppered with glowing stars, the fresh air starting to cool, and the pair of them walked hand in hand down the road back to Annie’s house.

“I really miss dry clothes,” Cosima commented with a shiver. “Like, clothes we didn’t just roll all over with our wet naked bodies. I’m totally wrapping myself up in a blanket and never coming out.”

Delphine giggled, leaning towards her. “I don’t regret it.”

“Oh, neither do,” Cosima told her with a grin. “And you’re totally gonna be in that blanket with me.”

“Am I?” she asked playfully.

Cosima nodded. “Mhm. Clothes are optional.”

“OK,” she agreed with a laugh.

They beamed at each other and continued their walk, but when Delphine looked up at the stars in the great wide sky her smile faltered. It all suddenly seemed so fragile. Here they were, two beings who’d found each other in the endless expanse of space and time, so small and weak compared to the forces that could pull them apart. She remembered her dream, Cosima’s life slipping away in front of her the way it almost had more times than she wanted to remember, and suddenly she found her cheeks were wet with tears.

“Hey, are you crying?” Cosima asked, surprised.

She sniffed, feeling stupid. “No…”

“You are,” Cosima realized. “Hey, wait a sec.” She stopped walking, holding onto Delphine’s hand like an anchor and Delphine stopped too. “What’s wrong?”

Delphine shook her head, wiping her cheek with the back of her hand. “I don’t know. I was just… scared all of a sudden.”

“Of what?” Cosima asked, frowning in confusion.

She shrugged, pausing to articulate what she wanted to say. “Oh, it’s just… I was thinking of how improbable it was that we’d ever be together. There were so many times when we both should have died, or you shouldn’t have forgiven me and-“

“Shouldn’t have forgiven you?” Cosima repeated incredulously.

“I did terrible things Cosima,” she told her without any invitation for doubt.

“Yeah, well I wasn’t always perfect either,” she conceded. “The first time you said I love you, I followed up with a threat.”

“You were trying to protect your family,” she objected.

“So were you,” Cosima pointed out. She narrowed her eyes, shaking her head. “Why are you thinking about this now?”

“Because I don’t want this to end,” she answered, her throat hot. “It's just… I don’t know why, but I had this horrible feeling that we could lose it.”

“To what?” Cosima asked. “That cricket over there?”

The animal chirped as if on cue.

“I’m being serious,” Delphine protested.

“Obviously. So am I,” Cosima objected. She stepped forward, placing a hand on Delphine’s chest. “Remember that?” Delphine brought her hand up to cover Cosima’s, her heart stirring. “I can still feel it, can you?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

Cosima shot her a sideways smile. “Then nothing can keep us apart.” The cricket chirped again and she tilted her head towards it. “Not even him.”

Delphine chuckled at her, bringing her hand up to her mouth to gently kiss her fingers. “Marry me.”

The words were out of her mouth before she had a chance to stop herself and she waited with baited breath as Cosima took them in. Her heart was suddenly beating like a hummingbird but she didn’t regret asking.

“Seriously?” Cosima asked quietly, searching her face. “Like… with a dress and our whole family there and our moms crying in the front row?”

“It can be whatever you want it to be,” she told her honestly, still clutching her hand. “I don’t mind. As long as I can be your wife.” She pulled Cosima’s hand back over her heart, squeezing it tightly. “I just want to be yours for the rest of my life.”

Cosima smiled, and when she moved forward to kiss her she had tears in her eyes too. She wrapped her arms around her neck and Delphine felt like they could float away her feet were so light. When she pulled back, she nuzzled her forehead against Delphine’s, giggling in delight.

“Yes,” she whispered. She kissed her again, first her lips, then her cheek and her neck, giggling as she did until they were both laughing and crying. “Yes. You can be my wife. And I’ll be yours.”

Delphine nudged her nose. “Good. I had a ring… Grand-maman was going to give it to me for you.” Suddenly she wondered if she’d done this the wrong way but Cosima was looking at her with shining eyes.

“I don’t have one for you yet,” she said breathlessly.

“That’s OK,” Delphine assured her.

“No, I’m going to get you one,” she promised. “And it’s going to be great. You’ll love it.”

“OK,” she agreed softly. Cosima shivered and she wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “Let’s get you some warm clothes,” she suggested. “Then I’ll wrap you up in the thickest blanket we have.”

“A fiancée burrito,” Cosima supplied. “Or, uh, a fiancée crêpe.”

Delphine laughed at her. “A fiancée in a cone.”

“Oh, mhm, that too,” Cosima agreed and they giggled together the rest of the way back.

///

About an hour later they’d quietly crept up the stairs and were laying against the headrest of the little bed, snuggled together under a thick blanket. Delphine was reading a book while Cosima checked her messages on her phone.

“Hey, look what Sarah sent me,” Cosima said, tilting her phone towards Delphine. “How creepy is that?”

Delphine set her book aside and squinted at the bright light, seeing a black and white photograph of a woman and a man standing underneath an apple tree. The man wore a vest over a pinned striped shirt and the woman wore a button up white blouse and a skirt. Both of them were smiling softly at whoever was taking the photograph and Delphine couldn’t help smiling back, strangely glad at how happy they looked.

“She looks familiar,” Delphine commented. Why did it feel like she knew her?

“Are you kidding me?” Cosima asked incredulously. “She looks exactly like you,”

Delphine made a face, noticing that Sarah had written “your girlfriend?” in her next text. Clearly, she must have been thinking the same thing as Cosima.

“I don’t know that man,” she told Cosima.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Cosima answered. “This picture is almost sixty years old. It was taken in 1955.”

“Who are they?” Delphine asked, seeing the resemblance but not ready to say the woman looked _exactly_ like her.

“I dunno,” Cosima said. “It just said Aurora and Alfred on the back of the picture so I’m guessing those are their names but there’s no other information about them. Probably apple farmers or something. Anyway, it gets weirder,” she added scrolling up. “This is from the first world war.”

The same face in a nurse’s uniform, this time she was sitting in a crowded infirmary, deep in conversation with as soldier with a cast on his arm. She did look a lot like Delphine, but she wasn’t familiar in the mysterious, nagging way that Aurora had been.

“That hospital was bombed right after the picture was taken,” Cosima told her. “But it says her name was Emily Walsh and she was part of the Voluntary Aid Department. Freaky, right?” Delphine squinted at the photograph, trying to see herself and Aurora in Emily until Cosima scrolled to the next one. “This is from 1847,” she said. “It says it’s from Philadelphia, but she doesn’t have a name. Well, uh, she has a name but we don’t know what it is… obviously…”

It was a girl this time, maybe eighteen or nineteen, leaning on one arm and looking at the camera as if she were bored. It looked very old, the image was fuzzy around the edges and black splotches circled it. She was much younger than the women in the previous photographs, but she did look a bit like them. And, Delphine conceded, like she had at that age.

“And this one,” Cosima added scandalously. “Is a painting from 1752.”

The woman in the painting was closer to Delphine’s age, blonde curls below a crown of flowers framing her pale face and a little black and white dog sitting on the lap of her pink dress.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Cosima said with a grin. “Maybe we could get Felix to recreate it with me instead of the dog.”

“Where did Sarah find this?” Delphine asked skeptically.

“Oh, it’s like, one of those articles about people who show up throughout history,” Cosima told her. “Like actors and stuff, only this time it’s you.”

“There are only four images,” Delphine pointed out. “And one isn’t even a photograph.”

Cosima switched to her picture folder, pulling up a picture of Delphine. “I have the fifth one,” she teased. “And photography was only invented in the eighteen-hundreds, Delphine,” she said matter-of-factly. “Who knows how far back this goes? Maybe you were a Viking.”

Laughing, Delphine pushed the phone away. “You’re both being ridiculous.”

“Sarah is,” Cosima said, grinning. Delphine looked over her shoulder to see her typing a message in reply.

 _‘Girlfriend? Did you mean, my fiancée?’_ it read.

“Cosima, are you really going to tell her like that?” Delphine asked, half amused, half disapproving. “It’s nearly three in the morning.”

“It’s only ten there,” Cosima reminded her. She hit the send button and Delphine scoffed at her.

Almost immediately, Sarah's reply appeared, and Cosima grinned at it. 

“What did she say?” she asked, leaning over her shoulder.

Smirking at her, Cosima tilted the phone towards her and she saw that Sarah had sent three exclamation marks. Then Cosima received four consecutive texts from Alison.

_‘When did this happen???’_

_‘Do you have a picture of the ring?’_

_‘Do lesbians wear rings?’_

_‘I’m so happy for you!’_

Another text from Sarah.

_‘Helena says congratulations. I think she wants to give you bread for some reason.’_

Alison again.

_‘When are you planning the wedding? The fall is always nice.’_

_‘Do you have a guest list?’_

_‘Do you need someone to help you organize?’_

Then Sarah, and by this time both Cosima and Delphine were laughing so hard their stomachs hurt.

_‘No, the bread is for the wedding.’_

_‘We’re so happy for you.’_

_‘Wait. What time is it there? Why are you up?’_

Followed by Alison’s

_‘It’s three in the morning there, honey. Go to bed.’_

“Should I tell them we’re still up because we had midnight river sex?” Cosima asked mischievously.

“You are not telling them that,” Delphine objected, grabbing for the phone and Cosima laughed, trying to hold it out of reach but her arms were to short.

When their hands tangled together around the phone, Cosima kissed her cheek. “I’m kidding. I’m just going to tell them we’re going to bed.”

“Brat,” Delphine chuckled, letting go.

“Hmm, yeah but I’m your brat,” she mumbled, typing out the texts. “And you love it.”

“Yeah, you are,” Delphine admitted.  She hooked an arm around her shoulder and Cosima leaned back against it, grinning at her. “I love everything about you,” she told her, running a finger down the side of her face.

Cosima’s eyes shone happily and her smile softened with contentment when Delphine reached her lips and she leaned forward to kiss her. Cosima chuckled softly, butting their noses together before initiating another kiss. After that she leaned back against Delphine’s arm, tracing the tips of her fingers over her jaw as they stared at each other with quiet adoration.

“Well, that’s good,” she whispered after a moment. “Because I love everything about you too.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we have come to the end. Thank you so much to everyone who followed along so far! Your comments really made me smile and I'm glad I got to share this with you. 
> 
> Bye! Until next time


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